And the West is History: Smelter Mountain with Tailings – 1959

Taken in 1959, from Fifth Street between Second and Third avenues, this photo shows the prominent tailings pile at the base of Smelter Mountain. By the early 1960s, the radiation-related health hazards of the pile were beginning to be understood. High winds often deposited radioactive dust over the southern portion of Durango. In 1963, with the prompting of San Juan Basin Health and local physicians, the Vanadium Corporation of America began watering the pile with an irrigation system to decrease the contaminated dust. By 1965, VCA began covering the pile with a “plate of rock and dirt” to prevent further wind-borne distribution. Calls for removing the uranium-containing tailings continued throughout the 1970s and ’80s. The removal process took place between 1987 and 1990. – Ed Horvat for Animas Museum, edhorvat@animasmuseum.org (Catalog Number: 99.01.23 from the La Plata County Historical Society Photo Collections)