By Ravin Robertson
The Utah Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program is improving a watershed and closing abandoned uranium mines near Blanding, San Juan County, as part of the Cottonwood Wash Watershed Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project.
Some of the hazards associated with the abandoned mines include exposure to radiation and leaching problems concerning nuclear waste storage facilities and tailings ponds.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon, a radioactive gas that forms as uranium decays, causes 14,000 deaths a year.
Stephen Nelson, BYU association professor of geology, said inhaled radon particles can cause lung cancer if the particles begin to decay inside the lung.
'The closing of the mine is a benign process, but the way that the federal agencies access the mine and the impact of closing the mine in the immediate area are the Sierra Club''s main concerns,' said Wayne Hoskisson, Public Lands Committee Chair for the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club. 'The real impact is in the places where there are waste heaps from the mines that are sitting on the sides of canyons and contain a fair amount of radioactivity that gets washed into the canyons.'
Mark Mesch, program administrator for the Utah Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program said the Cottonwood Wash project is unique because it is a cooperative project between state and federal agencies and is the third project in the nation where multiple agencies have gotten involved.
Partnering with Utah''s Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining has been working on a seven-phase project in Cottonwood Wash in an effort to protect the public and improve the environment.
Currently in the fourth and largest phase of the project, work at the West Black Mesa Butte encompasses a watershed measuring approximately 143,000 acres and over 100 abandoned uranium mines.
'In reclaiming a mine, the resources at the opening will determine what kind of closure can or cannot be used in that particular opening,' geologist Terry Snyder said. 'For instance, if bats are present and low radiation is present, then we will use a bat gate. If the amount of radiation is high and we can''t put people inside the mine to perform a bat survey, we exclude and backfill.'
Under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, the federal government gained jurisdiction over environmental problems related to surface coal mining, and in 1983, a reclamation program for Utah was approved by Congress.
'The BLM addresses physical safety hazards of all sites and addresses environmental problems that have water quality issues,' Snyder said. 'We work together with the state to maximize reclamation efforts at a site to minimize each agency''s costs so more money is available to do additional sites.'
Snyder said the Cottonwood Wash Watershed Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project is expected to be finished by the end of Sept. 2003.
The reclamation of uranium mines comes on the heels of a continuing controversy on storing nuclear waste in Utah. The debate has stirred up response from environmentalists who claim waste storage is a threat to health.
'Personally it is wrong that we are storing nuclear waste from other states in our states,' said Sarah Farnsworth, 21, a senior from Orem majoring in visual arts and co-president of Eco-Response, an educational and environmentally active campus club. 'It does pose a threat to people''s health and the environment. The people who create the waste should be responsible for storing it in their area or find alternate solutions for storing the waste.'