Moab uranium tailing cleanup still going after 13 years
waterdesk.org
and last updated 2021-05-12 20:07:10-04
MOAB, Utah â Before Moab was a Mecca for outdoor recreation in Utah, it was the hub of cold war uranium mining; and in the rush to process the ore for nuclear weapons, officials made a terrible decision we re still paying for.
That decision made in 1956 was to build a uranium processing mill along the banks of the most important river in the American Southwest: the Colorado River. When they established a mill, there wasn t very much thought given to protecting the river, said Russell McCallister, the director of the federal cleanup.