Residents who live near a proposed uranium tailings disposal site south of Durango near Bondad made clear Thursday night they don’t want radioactive waste brought to their neighborhood.
“If it’s dangerous for someone else,” said Patrick Bing, who lives a quarter-mile from the site, “it’s dangerous for us.”
In the mid-1900s, people freely used uranium mill tailings that were piled up at the smelter in Durango, which is now the Durango Dog Park, for construction around town.
In the 1980s, a massive, multi-million-dollar effort led by the U.S. Department of Energy sought to clean up the radioactive waste, which resulted in 122,000 cubic yards being removed from Durango homes, businesses, public buildings, roads and parks.
But earlier this year, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said more than 100 properties were missed and still require cleanup.
The state, however, has not secured a site locally that would serve as a staging area where residents could bring the tainted material. Once that can be done, and residents have had a chance to drop off the tailings, the plan would be for state health officials to take the waste to a permanent storage facility in Grand Junction.
The state health department is proposing to use a property at 1106 U.S. Highway 550, about 20 miles south of Durango, for temporary storage for two years, until a permanent staging area can be identified. The site is owned by the Colorado Department of Transportation.
The proposed plan would be to have a roll-off dumpster with a capacity of up to 40 cubic yards where residents can dump their waste. Once full, it would be taken to Grand Junction. The state estimates there would be three to five drop-offs a month, and three trips to Grand Junction a year.
But residents near Bondad showed up in full force Thursday to voice opposition to the plan before the La Plata County Planning Commission, which was tasked with reviewing the state health department’s proposal.
A common theme residents aired was the risk to health and the environment, impacts to property values and the fact the site is only yards away from the Animas River and an irrigation ditch that serves northern New Mexico.
“We’re not trying to get out of control here, but we’re quite passionate about it … cause this is nuts,” said Dan Johnson, who lives south of the site.
State health officials maintained the uranium tailings would be placed in a sealed roll-off dumpster and the risk to neighbors would be minimal, if not nonexistent. They stressed the need to identify a staging area so impacted property owners can be notified and start to plan to remove radioactive waste.
The more than 100 property owners who may have uranium tailings on their land will not be contacted until a staging area is identified, the state health department has said.
But Bondad residents, as well as planning commissioners, took issue with the state’s supposed downplaying of potential health risks. They also took issue with the fact property owners with mill tailings on their property won’t have oversight of remediation projects or hauling the contaminated material to a dump site.
“I don’t think this is thought through,” said Commissioner Mike Scieszka.
State officials have said the ideal location would be to have the staging area at the uranium tailings dump site (where the tailings from the smelter were moved and capped) up County Road 210, a few miles southwest of Durango.
The site, however, is run by the Department of Energy, which is opposed to the idea. A DOE spokeswoman said in an email to The Durango Herald a storage facility is not an allowed use at the site.
At the request of local officials, Southwest Colorado’s congressional delegates have introduced federal legislation that would require DOE to give land to the state health department for a storage facility, but that option is held up in the legislative process.
A representative with CDPHE said the department expects it will take about two years, but planning commissioners weren’t buying it.
“Two years sounds untenable,” Scieszka said.
Planning commissioners denied the project.
County Manager Chuck Stevens said because CDPHE is the applicant of the project, an appeal of the disapproval will go to CDPHE’s Board of Health. That board may vote to overrule the Planning Commission’s disapproval and proceed with the project.
“The statute is silent about the mechanics or timing of the appeal,” Stevens said. “If the Board of Health overrules the Planning Commission’s decision, they must notify the Planning Department within 14 business days of their decision to do so.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this story said the project would go to La Plata County commissioners for a vote. Incorrect information was given to The Durango Herald.
