North (San Diego) County Times: Catastrophe awaits in Utah

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Thursday, March 17, 2005

Catastrophe awaits in Utah

By: North County Times - Editorial

Our View: It is a deal at 10 times the price: Federal officials say it will take $400 million or so to clean up the 12 million-ton pile of radioactive slag that is leaking poison into the Colorado River, a key source of drinking water for North County and millions of fellow residents of the Southwest United States.

The U.S. government needs to immediately wrap up studies and move this dire threat safely away from the river. There are few higher priorities in public policy.

For five years, Energy Department officials have been studying the pile, which sits in Moab, Utah, at a hair-raising distance of just 750 feet from the river. The legacy of a closed uranium mine that fed the nuclear weapons and power industries, it is filled with highly radioactive heavy metals such as uranium, radium and radon, and with poisonous chemicals such as ammonia and sulfuric acid salts.

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It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Colorado River, which provides more than a third of the water used by Southern California's 18 million people. Relatively small cutbacks provoke epic political battles; doing without the river's water entirely would trigger draconian rationing for residents, and almost certainly destroy the world's most-lucrative farming region. Incredibly, Energy Department officials say they still don't know what to do with the radioactive pile. Options include burying it and hoping for the best.

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For years, the unofficial motto of water officials has been "dilution is the solution to pollution." With society unwilling and unable to pay for an infinitely clean environment, policymakers must rely on imperfect and evolving science to help them set priorities.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/17/opinion/editorials/23_28_383_16_05.txt