Bush Adds Funds to Clean Up Toxic Slag Heap

Reversing an earlier decision, the Bush administration announced Monday it is adding money to its budget to continue the cleanup of an enormous heap of uranium slag in southern Utah that has been leaking radioactive waste into the Colorado River.

Officials at the Office of Management and Budget informed several congressional offices that $1.4 million is being added to the current year’s budget to study how to move the heap several miles away from the river, a major source of water for 25 million people in Southern California and the Southwest.

A bipartisan coalition of congressional members in Utah and California, along with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, had waged an aggressive lobbying effort to get the new administration to provide funding for the project.

In its final weeks, the Clinton administration last year had pledged support for moving the pile. But in its first proposed budget, the Bush administration had not included any money for cleaning up the slag heap left from a uranium mill that shut down in 1984.

Although much more money is needed to actually move the heap--which covers an area the size of 130 football fields and holds 13 million tons of waste matter--congressional representatives and others saw the $1.4-million reversal as a hopeful sign.

“To get the administration to make a change like this is a major victory,” said Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista). “I wish it were more, but it’s a start.”

“We think this shows the Bush administration is willing to honor a commitment by the Clinton administration to get the tailing pile moved,” said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah).

The slag heap is about 750 feet from the river’s edge near the small town of Moab, Utah, and near an 875-acre wetland preserve. The region was the site of a uranium mining effort in the 1950s to provide material for nuclear weapons.

The court-appointed trustee for Atlas Corp., which operated the mine and sought Bankruptcy Court protection in 1998, has overseen recent work to remove water from the pile to decrease the amount of toxic substances leaching into the river.

That work has been financed by a cleanup fund controlled by the federal government, which included contributions from Atlas. The fund, however, will not pay for the heap to be moved.

Now that the Bush administration has shown interest in the Moab project, the congressional coalition, including Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Montebello), will concentrate on seeking $10 million in next year’s budget.

The $1.4 million involved transferring funds from one project to another, a common budgetary stratagem to make midyear changes.