MoabPile Late 2011
Moab UMTRA Plays Russian Roulette With Nuclear Waste
Late May 2011 found me in Moab,
Utah once again. While there, one of my projects
was to monitor potential flooding along the
Colorado River. Previous research and
scientific findings indicate that a
Colorado River flood at Moab is more likely
now than in any recent time.
As temperatures swing, drought
prevails and
dust storms roam the Four Corners, a heavy
spring snowpack, and a quick thaw could create
catastrophic flooding at Moab. To be sure, most
of the town lies on higher ground, well above
the paleo-floodplain. Other than a few
commercial buildings and several campgrounds,
the greatest risk is
flooding at the Moab Pile.
During
the Cold War years, uranium mines near Moab fed
radioactive ore to the Atlas Uranium Mill. Using
large quantities of highly corrosive acid, the
mill concentrated the ore and then shipped it to
the federal government, which had a monopoly on
all things radioactive. Since all Americans
hypothetically benefited from the nuclear
deterrent known as “assured mutual destruction”,
so too should we all pay to cleanup the mess
abandoned by the nuclear industry.
Remnants of the Atlas Uranium
Mill and a colossal mountain of radioactive
tailings together make up the Moab Pile. Since
2009, excavators have filled and sealed steel
containers with vast amounts of the pile’s
radioactive earth. From Moab to
Crescent Junction, the material takes a free
ride via the Union Pacific Railroad's "Train
of Pain". Actually, the ride is not free.
Through our federal tax dollars, all U.S.
Persons pay for its removal.
By
late May 2011, the Colorado River approached
flood-stage in Grand Junction, Colorado. As the
flood surged downstream, I wanted to see if the
Moab Pile was as vulnerable as
paleo-flood surveys indicated. Over a
two-day period, I visited several sites on each
side of the river and also stood above the
flow on the bicycle bridge. Viewed from any
angle, water reached higher on the riverbanks
than I had ever seen. According to some reports,
flow rates have not been this high since 1983,
when Lake Powell filled to capacity and forced
operators to open the Glen Canyon Dam spill
gates for the first time.
From the bicycle bridge, looking
downstream, the U.S. 191 Highway Bridge appeared
to skim low over the water. With its gracefully
arched concrete supports, there was still some
headroom for the water to flow. Just south of
the highway bridge, the
Canyonlands by Night buildings looked
vulnerable to me. The riverbanks there were high
enough to allay imminent fears, but their lack
of reinforcement made for inadequate protection
in the event of a larger flow. In any event, I
would not want to own their flood insurance
company.
I
stopped at Canyonlands by Night to see if they
needed a live webcam. A representative said,
“No, we already have one”. To myself, I thought,
“Maybe you do, but it is not easy to find on the
internet”. There was an excursion boat tethered
to the floating dock, but otherwise the grounds
appeared deserted. Standing close to the river,
I could picture two alternate scenarios. In the
local version, the flood subsided and life in
Moab went on as usual. In the Hollywood version,
the snowpack in the high country melted in days,
not months. The silent power of the Colorado
River flood then enveloped the Canyonlands by
Night property and swept it away.
Continuing my river tour, I
turned off U.S. 191 at
Utah State Route 279, better known as the
Potash Road. After skirting the now
diminished Moab Pile, I headed downstream.
Despite nearly a decade of attempted
extermination using the Tamarisk Beetle, large,
half-dead tamarisk shielded every river view.
Soon, I turned around and drove back to where I
could see the Moab Pile, the Colorado River and
the
Scott Matheson Wetlands, all in one
panorama. From a distance of about one half
mile, the churning brown, river appeared to lap
at the base of the Moab Pile. The following day,
I drove downriver on the opposite bank, along
the Kane Creek Road. With the Matheson Wetlands
then to my right, the Moab Pile stood out on the
horizon, along the far riverbank. Although the
river was turgid and brown, its wide channel in
that area kept the river in check.
Writing
now from California in late June 2011, I must
rely on news reports and internet searches to
keep up with the story. While Googling
variations of, “Colorado River Flood Moab 2011”,
I found a number of articles that touched upon
the subject. None, however, told what I
considered to be a complete story. As I have
pieced it together, here is what transpired
since I left Moab in early June.
Both the Green River and the Colorado River
continued to rise until at least mid-June. Grand
Junction, Colorado experienced significant
flooding and bank-erosion, although the river
made a long, slow peak there. Downstream, near
Moab, the Red Cliffs Lodge experienced bank
erosion and flooding of temporary structures in
what they call their “gravel area”. According to
on-scene reports, the river never approached the
hotel or its guest rooms. The Colorado River
bicycle and highway bridges at Moab stood firmly
above the river. Canyonlands by Night remained
dry, if not high above the river crest. The Moab
Pile still sits sedately in its old place,
although water backed-up into adjacent drainage
channels.
In
the spring of 2011, what saved the Moab Pile? The
answer may lie in the Matheson Wetlands, which were
a softer target than the Moab Pile. Wildfires swept
hundreds of acres near the river in 2009, with
another sixty acres burned in June 2011. By late
June, the river flooded the Matheson Wetlands,
submerging much of the recent burn area. Root
structures weakened in the 2009 fire now let go
altogether. Without further human intervention, the
latest fire became the lucky break that we needed.
If two separate fires caused by human carelessness
had not weakened the plant structures along the
river, the wetlands might have held their banks. As
it was, they absorbed the flood over a wide flood
plain. If they had not accepted the flood as they
did, a rampaging Colorado River might have projected
its hydraulic power toward the reeking hulk of the
Moab Pile.
In order to protect the Moab
Pile, UMTRA crews have removed some material
from its leading edge. UMTRA has constructed
several small protective berms, as well.
However, the paleo-history of floods along the
Colorado River at Moab indicates that the Moab
Pile remains vulnerable to the "three hundred
year flood", if it should happen during the next
decade. During that decade of tailings removal,
there is a one-in-thirty chance that a flood of
up to ten times the current 32,000 cfs flow rate
will hit Moab. Picture a wall of water forty or
fifty feet higher than the new highway bridge as
it sweeps out of the
Colorado Riverway Canyon, and then on
towards the Moab Pile.
Had
the Upper Colorado Basin snowpack been deeper
last winter or had it melted faster, the 2011
story might have ended quite differently. We who
live downstream and depend on the Colorado River
for our water supply were lucky this time. Just
as easily, it could have gone the other way. In
a Fukushima-like, scenario, some or all of the
Moab Pile could now lie as radioactive mud on
the bottom of Lake Powell. If a mega flood were
to fill Lake Powell, operators at Glen Canyon
Dam would open the flood gates and sweep that
cloud of radioactive mud on towards Lake Meade.
Such an event would likely rank as the number
one human caused disaster in all of recorded
history. For lack of uncontaminated water, the
Desert Southwest would face a human
out-migration fifteen to thirty times greater
than what occurred during the
disappearance of the Anasazi.
Recent news reports stated that
by 2019, the
Moab Pile could be moved. The engineers and
workers at the Moab UMTRA project are so
efficient that they haul more radioactive-waste
more quickly than ever before. among other
things, they have learned to fill huge
rectangular containers almost to the brim. Even
though an initial infusion of federal stimulus
money is now gone, the original twenty-year plan
could culminate in less than fifteen years.
Despite the lucrative contracts to remove it, no
one wants to hang around a pile of radioactive
waste any longer than necessary.
The
“speed is of the essence” mentality at Moab
UMTRA increases our collective risk. The highest
priority should be to protect the pile from
flood damage and dispersal. Recent flood
mitigation at the site proved sufficient for
this year's 30-year flood. Once sufficient flood
mitigation is in place to protect against the
300-year flood, removal could again become the
top priority. Otherwise, the unprotected status
of the Moab Pile will require that we, in the
Southwestern United States dodge the “nuclear
bullet” each spring until at least 2019.
Check back here in 2020 to see if
disaster struck. If we are writing our articles
from upstream of the current Moab Pile, you will
know that current plans did not go well. If we
are then writing from downstream in sunny
Southern California, you will know that we all
won the game of “Nuclear Waste Roulette” now
playing out along the Colorado River at Moab.
Email
James McGillis
Nuclear Dust Storm Hits Moab, Utah
From August 14 – 19, 2011 I
was in my favorite town of
Moab, Utah. With several of eight local
Moablive.com webcams in need of service
and one new webcam to install, I had a busy
week in Moab. Other than two brief
thunderstorms, it was either warm or hot
during my entire visit. When I left Moab at
3:00 AM on Friday morning, it was 76
degrees. Each day, downtown temperatures
topped one hundred degrees . At the
Moab Rim Campark, away from all of the
concrete and asphalt, it was a bit cooler .
On Tuesday, I visited Andy
Nettell, proprietor at the back of the Back
of Beyond Bookstore. A month earlier, our
bookstore webcam server had failed.
Luckily,
the spare unit that I sent to Andy via UPS
plugged right in and has worked flawlessly
ever since. Next time you visit the
bookstore, visit Andy’s antiquarian section
at the back of the store. There you will see
a red light flashing on our live webcam.
Luckily,
the spare unit that I sent to Andy via UPS
plugged right in and has worked flawlessly
ever since. Next time you visit the
bookstore, visit Andy’s antiquarian section
at the back of the store. There you will see
a red light flashing on our live webcam.
After retrieving the broken
server from the bookstore, I headed over to
Best Western Canyonlands Inn, intent upon
getting wireless service connected to their
webcam. With help from the friendly staff at
the hotel, I was able to bypass their log-in
screen and reconnect the Moab Canyonlands
Inn “Center and Main” webcam. The webcam is
located above the Peace Tree Café, in the
new Main St. Suites at Canyonlands Inn. Now
that their webcam is working properly, you
can watch vehicular and foot traffic any
time in Downtown Moab. The best place to
watch is on our website.
Next, I headed twelve miles
north of town on U.S. Highway 191. My
destination was
Canyonlands Field, also known as the
Moab Airport. There, at
Redtail Aviation, we have a live webcam
pointing out the window of their hanger. Its
field of view includes the arrival/departure
area for Great Lakes Airlines, as well as
the parking area for visiting private jets.
Mr. Chris Bracken, pilot and mechanic
for Redtail Aviation was working in the
hanger that afternoon. He offered moral
support as I taped the webcam back on to its
designated window. Using different types of
tape, we are still baffled by why the camera
will not stay firmly attached to the hanger
window. Chris believes it is a combination
of cool air from their swamp cooler and high
heat on the outside of the window glass.
After I left town, the camera fell from the
window, but Chris got it back in business
the next day.
Thursday, August 18 was my
last day in Moab, and I had one new webcam
to install. An associate broker at Arches
Realty in Downtown Moab had asked me to come
in. After quickly deciding on the best view,
I began installation of their new webcam.
Six hours later, I had the webcam tested and
showing a great image of Moab and the
Redrocks from their first story window.
Alas, a year later, the company asked me to
remove their webcam. The image below is the
last surviving image from that webcam.
Before I left her office, an
associate broker invited me to review
all of the MoabLive.com webcams on her
computer screen. On the screen we could see
a thunderstorm raging at Canyonlands Field,
about fifteen files north of our location. A
quick glance at our several Spanish Valley
webcams showed increased weather activity
all around. The Slickrock had clouds,
thunder storms cloaked the
La Sal Range and the flag flew almost
straight up near the
Moab Rim. From our
vantage
point at the computer, we could see thunder
storms coming and thunder storms blowing
away. Looking at that spectacular sight, we
were awed by the breadth and power of nature
in and around Moab.
vantage
point at the computer, we could see thunder
storms coming and thunder storms blowing
away. Looking at that spectacular sight, we
were awed by the breadth and power of nature
in and around Moab.
Approaching as it did, from
the north; the storm first hit Canyonlands
Field, and then moved on towards Moab. As
the airport-thunderstorm collapsed, it sent
a torrent of cold air south, along the Moab
Rim and down the U.S. Highway 191 canyon.
There, the venturi effect created by narrow
canyon walls accelerated the wind. At the
Potash Road, the canyon widens again,
thus allowing the wind to fan out over the
top and sides of the
Moab UMTRA site. The rounded shape of
the Moab Pile allowed a low pressure zone to
develop over its top. Behaving like a giant
airplane wing, wind gusts entering that low
pressure zone launched tons of radioactive
and toxic soils into the air.
The
heavier particles (and presumably the
heavier radio-nucleotides) quickly fell back
to earth. With the UMTRA's direct adjacency
to the Colorado River, I am sad to report
that the river received a heavy dose of
radioactive dust and chemical toxins, as
released by the ensuing dust storm. It is
always good to remember our downstream
neighbors. In this case fourteen million
American and Mexican citizens
living downstream rely on the Colorado
River for drinking water, manufacturing and
crop irrigation. As sad as these facts may
be, The Dust Storm of August 19, 2011 did
not end there.
Writing later to a Moab
friend, I said, “By the time I got to a gas
station on the south side of town, a gale of
dust and trash swept over me. When I arrived
home at the
Moab Rim RV Campark, farther south, I
went down to the rail fence and took some
pictures. From there, I could see wind
ravaging the
Moab Pile and sending tons of
radioactive dust toward Downtown Moab.
From
the pictures I took, it is obvious that the
UMTRA site is highly vulnerable to winds
streaming down-canyon past the
Arches National Park entrance. Near that
location, the canyon both narrows and
deepens. The resultant squeezing of the air
creates a venturi effect that is focused on
to the northwest side of the pile. Since the
UMTRA
removal efforts expose more raw soil
daily, it easily went airborne and
precipitated out as dust throughout the City
of Moab and the
Spanish Valley.
Simultaneously, a similar,
but larger dust storm was tearing up the
land in Phoenix, Arizona and all of Maricopa
County. Was that mere coincidence, or is
there a definable connection between those
two dust storms? Only if the DOE and the
National Weather Service (NWS)
cooperate and share data on such events will
we begin to predict their occurrence. In
this case, I suspect a weather front that
stretched from Canyon Country, Utah to
Tucson, Arizona. Perhaps someone of
knowledge could check and correlate the
timing of regional dust storms throughout
the
Four Corners Region.
Despite
the absence of region-wide information
sharing, any actions taken at the Moab UMTRA
project on August 18, 2011 were inadequate.
Transporting the Moab Pile by rail to
Brendel and Crescent Junction, Utah
appeared to be their focus. A distant second
in importance is the
physical integrity of the pile, as it
exists today. A local resident told me that
telephone complaints about UMTRA's dust
bring a canned response from the
contractor’s public relations office.
Callers, who may be choking on UMTRA’s toxic
dust, are told that ‘wind over a certain
speed results in immediate suspension of
grading and hauling at the site’.”
Even without coordinated dust
storm alerts, UMTRA contractors can now
monitor nine public webcams situated around
Moab and the Spanish Valley. If they were to
monitor only one screen provided me as the
Moab Live Public Service Webcam Page, UMTRA
contractors could see a windstorm coming
long before they felt it. Greater Moab has
many micro-environments and each has
its
own unique micro-weather. If Uranium King,
Charles (Charlie) Steen (1919-2006) had
foreseen the long-term threat that his
company created, I doubt that he would have
situated his
Atlas Uranium Mill (now UMTRA) at its
current location. With the ongoing threat
from flooding and wind storms, old
Cold War fears still haunt the area
around his creation.
its
own unique micro-weather. If Uranium King,
Charles (Charlie) Steen (1919-2006) had
foreseen the long-term threat that his
company created, I doubt that he would have
situated his
Atlas Uranium Mill (now UMTRA) at its
current location. With the ongoing threat
from flooding and wind storms, old
Cold War fears still haunt the area
around his creation.
The drill rig shown abandoned
below the Moab Rim is of the type borrowed
by Charlie Steen to make his Mi Vida Mine
discovery. In fact it may be the exact same
rig. In those days, and for many years
thereafter, mining trucks and equipment were
often abandoned around Moab. Those who
brought this piece of Moab memorabilia to
its current location carefully jacked it up
on to several railroad ties, removed the
wheels and drove away. Now, forty or more
years after its derelict arrival, the
machine slowly rusts away. At the rate of
current decomposition, I estimate its
half-life to be about 704 million years,
which coincides nicely with the half-life of
uranium-235 which it was used to discover.
I
have not read the Department of Energy’s
(DOE) charter of the UMTRA Moab Project, but
there must be something in there about using
every reasonable and cost-effective method
of protecting the Moab Pile from flooding
downstream or blowing away in the wind. We
know from previous studies that deep beneath
the Moab Pile there is a large reservoir of
contaminated water. In fact, the center of
the pile is so wet that the latest Google
Earth view of the UMTRA site shows a
recently uncovered stream bed.
Water beneath the Moab Pile
has only two places it can go. If allowed
to, it will migrate downstream towards the
Colorado River. In fact, a well-field
along the riverside attempts to extract
contaminated ground water and spread it atop
the pile. As the water slowly dries on
undisturbed parts of the pile, it forms a
tough crust. With so much of the site under
recent excavation, very little of the ground
stays undisturbed for long. As a result,
much of the UMTRA site is unprotected from
another big “blow off”.
The DOE should require the
contractor to take immediate action to
design and deploy a far larger array of
sprinklers at the site. Ideally, an onsite
reservoir would feed the sprinkler system,
which could quickly cover the entire pile.
With better weather monitoring and
forecasting, the contractor could start
deploying
large volumes of sprinkled water ahead of
the next dust storm, rather than afterwards,
or as on August 18, 2011, “not at all”.
Whoever monitors the weather and calls for
future halts in work at the site should be
an employee of the NWS, not the DOE or the
contractor. When danger lurks for the Moab
Pile, no one should second-guess an early
weather-shutdown, rather than a late one. In
the current situation, shutting down “on
time” is often too late.
deploying
large volumes of sprinkled water ahead of
the next dust storm, rather than afterwards,
or as on August 18, 2011, “not at all”.
Whoever monitors the weather and calls for
future halts in work at the site should be
an employee of the NWS, not the DOE or the
contractor. When danger lurks for the Moab
Pile, no one should second-guess an early
weather-shutdown, rather than a late one. In
the current situation, shutting down “on
time” is often too late.
Many in Moab grew up with or
within the nuclear industry. Despite the
toll it took on mine workers and processors,
Moab is tolerant to the point of nostalgia
about its ranching and mining past. That
familiarity may breed complacency, which
Moab can ill afford. Even if many residents
consider a nuclear dust-bath to be an
acceptable occurrence in town, most tourists
and visitors do not. The only way to assure
the safety of all in Moab is to take
immediate measures to change the Moab UMTRA
charter, making environmental protection at
least as important as
removal and transportation of
contaminated material.
Email
James McGillis
