Dawn Mining Breaks Ground On Waste Ponds Out-Of-State Radioactive Waste Will Raise Cleanup Money

Construction began last week on a $4 million “rice paddy” that will allow Dawn Mining Co. to receive out-of-state uranium mill tailings at its abandoned uranium mill site in Ford.

The company is building five evaporation ponds that officials say will be tiered like rice paddies because of a slight slope across the 97 acres the ponds will occupy. The ponds will be used to get rid of 138 million gallons of acidic, radioactive water in a 28-acre disposal pit.

The water eventually will evaporate from the shallow, plastic-lined ponds, leaving dry residue that will be returned to the disposal pit. The company needs to get the water out of the plastic-lined disposal pit so it can receive uranium mill tailings from other parts of the country.

Bruce Miyahara, state health secretary, authorized Dawn in February to put the out-of-state waste in the mostly empty pit to raise money for cleaning up the abandoned mill. Disposal payments also would help clean up the abandoned Midnite uranium mill near Wellpinit, Wash., that supplied the mill.

When the mill and mine opened in the 1950s, weak environmental laws failed to require bonds big enough to cover closure costs. Dawn now is almost bankrupt and says it can’t pay for the cleanup without importing more mill tailings to generate cash.

Wealthy Newmont Mining of Denver owns 51 percent of Dawn, but refused to pay the cleanup bill - and the penny stock company that owns the rest of Dawn is defunct. State officials concluded that a lawsuit to pierce the legal veil between Dawn and Newmont would be long, expensive and difficult to win.

State Health Department radiation experts say the imported waste would be the same as what already is in the partially filled disposal pit.

They say it is far less radioactive than the “low-level nuclear waste” at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and poses no health hazard.

Environmentalists insist the state has opened the door to more out-of-state nuclear waste.

Dawn Manager Bob Nelson plans to start pumping water out of the disposal pit as soon as the first evaporation pond is completed, probably in mid-September.

Nelson said he hopes to have all the ponds completed by the end of November and all of the water out of the old disposal pit by the end of the year.

When all the water is out of the disposal pit, Nelson will send a photograph to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Company officials believe lack of readiness is one reason the federal agency recently rejected one of two Dawn bids to receive uranium mill tailings stockpiled from environmental cleanups.

Results of the second bid have not been announced. Dawn expects another round of bidding this fall, probably in October.

Dawn President Chip Clark, who is vice president of Newmont, said the company’s first bid was for sand-like material that contains thorium from the manufacture of gas lantern mantles.

He said the radioactivity level is so low it wasn’t recognized earlier in this century, and the waste got into stream banks after it was used as fill.

Under Dawn’s license from the state Health Department, a committee of Ford-area residents must approve any disposal contract Dawn wins.

That doesn’t sit well with Springdale-area resident Owen Berio, spokesman for the Dawn Watch coalition of environmental organizations.

Berio complained that membership on the committee was limited to residents within a five-mile radius, excluding him even though he lives in the vicinity. He thinks the committee needs outside expertise.

“I don’t feel comfortable, no matter how well-meaning they are, if you sequester five old farmers together,” Berio said.

“It’s of importance to everyone in the state. I think you want someone other than housewives and handymen on it.”

Dawn Watch and the Spokane Tribe of Indians, whose reservation is next to the mill, have appealed the adequacy of the supplemental environmental impact statement on the disposal project.

They also have filed a lawsuit in Thurston County challenging the license that resulted from the impact statement.

The lawsuit is being held in abeyance until the administrative appeal of the impact statement is resolved.

On July 13, a Health Department review judge threw out 17 of 20 issues in the appeal.

The judge scheduled a hearing Aug. 14-18 on the remaining three issues: that tribal water rights were not adequately studied, that plans for cleaning up the Midnite Mine should have been considered and that rail transportation of the waste through other states needed more attention.

Judge Colleen Klein must make her decision within 30 days after the hearing ends.

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