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Spokane tribe is hot about radioactive waste transport
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Cate Montana
Today staff
Northwest Bureau
>����� WELLPINIT, Wash. - Dawn Mining Co., seeking renewal of a license to transport radioactive fill material to reclaim a defunct uranium mill on the border of the Spokane reservation, has run into hot protest from the tribe.
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>����� At a recent public hearing at the tribe's longhouse, tribal members spoke out against the mining company's proposal to transport slightly radioactive fill from sites in New York, Missouri and other states to fill the 40-million-cubic-foot hole at the Ford site in Washington.
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>����� Most members feared the fill would further contaminate Chamokane Creek, the ground water and the aquifer that supply the tribe's water. Additional concerns were raised about the safety of transporting the material from the Spokane rail yards� to the Ford mill site.
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>����� "The road they've chosen is Highway 231," said Alfred Peone, tribal councilman. "It's one of our main routes from the reservation to Spokane... . There are a lot of really dangerous spots on it."
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>����� Peone said there is a high incidence of traffic accidents on the route and in certain areas subject to flooding, highway shoulders have collapsed.
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>����� It is estimated that in the years it would take to fill the impoundment at the mill, 50,000 trucks would have to travel the rural route heavily used by school children and tribal members.
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>����� But most of the tribe's concern is over importation of additional radioactive material to reclaim the mill project.
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>����� "We feel they didn't do enough research," maintains Peone. "Dawn has always said they don't have any money for any kind of reclamation. Well, they've got enough money for all these lawyers and travel and stumbling blocks at all these meetings, yet they don't have enough money for closing that thing. If we'd done something like that, we'd be held accountable to do what we're supposed to do to clean it up."
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>����� According to Bob Nelson, general manager of Dawn Mining, the company has been trying to reclaim and close the project for a long time. But, because of the complete collapse of the U.S. uranium mining industry during the past 15 years, funds have not been available to complete the project.
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>����� "The reason we're using 11e(2) byproduct material is that it's a source of revenue, plus it fills our facility, something that's got to be done anyway," Nelson said. "It fills the impoundment. It provides money to reclaim the whole site. Plus we hope to make money enough to reclaim the mine site also." Nelson also stated that although there's a big need for a disposal facility in the United States to handle this type of tailings waste and despite rumors to the contrary, the small town of Ford "is not the place for a radioactive waste disposal facility.
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>����� "We're just looking to solve a problem that's already here," he said.
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>����� Gary Robertson of the Department of Health's radiation unit, told tribal members at the meeting that the proposed by-product fill material is no more radioactive than the tailings� already on the mill site. he said readings of gamma radiation from the fence line of the mill property is at a "background level."
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>����� "When we do samplings in Chamokane Creek," Robertson said. "We get the same readings of 2 to 6 picoCuries per liter at the headwaters above the mill, prior to any effluent, as we do downstream of the mill."
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>����� The Environmental Protection Agency has listed 300 picoCuries per liter as the acceptable level of radiation for groundwater.
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>����� "The tribe expressed a lot of fear and concern at the last meeting," Robertson said. "And I don't know how to alleviate their fears."
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>����� Currently the tribe is at issue with the Department of Health over the mill reclamation for several reasons. These and other complaints were filed against the health department in district court in August:
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>����� � Radioactive and other contaminant's from the mill site have entered and continue to enter surface waters on the mill site, which in turn have entered and continue to enter the surface waters of Chamokane Creek at locations owned by the Spokane tribe as well as interconnected ground water of the reservation.
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>����� � The Department of Health Final Environmental Impact Statement determined that the preferred alternatives for filling Dawn Mining's vast tailings impoundment were to use clean, uncontaminated fill material. One of the primary reasons for the preference was that using clean fill would present fewer traffic safety hazards.
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>����� � The Department of Health recommendation that Dawn Mining Co. post a $20 million dollar reclamation bond has not been collected.
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>����� � A supplemental Environmental Impact Statement did not fully consider the transportation and traffic issues related to the Dawn Mining Co. waste importation proposal because the company had not selected the proposed route.
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>����� Unlike the tribe's previous participation with the health department in closing and reclamation of another uranium mine site, Western Nuclear, Robertson said the tribe refused to participate on reclamation of the current Dawn Mining project.
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>����� He said it refused to join the Local Citizens Monitoring Committee which has absolute veto power over what procedures are used in the mill site reclamation project, and that the tribe also refused to sign a memorandum of agreement wherein the Department of Health would share all of its information with the tribe.
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>����� "The tribe is not a participant in this because we didn't use the material," said Peone. "We had the land that it was on. The federal government came in and had miners locate it (the uranium). They used the ore. They used the uranium for nuclear purposes during several years. It wasn't our part to do it.
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>����� "We got the land, but they're the ones that used the material. We didn't use any of it. We don't want to be accountable for their mistakes that they should have taken care of years ago."
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>����� But, according to both the Department of Health and Dawn Mining Co., it was several tribal members who discovered the uranium deposits in 1954; tribal members who found funding with Newmont Inc. of Denver, Dawn Mining's primary shareholder, and tribal members who still hold shares in Dawn Mining Co.
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>����� "The mill was embraced by the tribe and the local community throughout its history," said Nelson. "The tribe made a lot of money on this project in royalties and lease payments and such."
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>����� Dawn Mining's license with the state of Washington to transport the radioactive material expires in January.
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