Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

County Wants Uranium Deal Rescinded

Spokane County commissioners are asking Gov. Gary Locke to rescind Dawn Mining Co.’s license to import tons of uranium-laced rubble to Ford, Wash.

In a brisk, unanimous vote Tuesday, the commissioners also said U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay the $15-20 million bill for the long-haul deal.

They asked the U.S. Department of Energy not to grant any contracts to haul nuclear discards from the East Coast to Eastern Washington.

If Dawn gets the contracts anyway, it should have to post a bond to cover damage to Eastern Washington roads, the commissioners said.

If the deal goes ahead, about 40 large trucks, each containing 60,000 pounds of uranium dirt, will travel each day from a Spokane rail yard to Ford. The trucks will roll 260 days a year for five to seven years.

Frustrated Dawn officials attended the commissioners’ meeting but weren’t allowed to speak.

“This is political grandstanding. They only had input from one side,” said Bob Nelson, site manager at Dawn’s defunct uranium milling pit near Ford.

The commissioners also didn’t ask for a briefing from the state Department of Health, which granted Dawn its five-year disposal permit in 1995, said Dorothy Stoffels of the department’s Spokane office.

The commissioners were briefed on the project last year by Dawn officials.

They were hostile to Dawn’s transportation plan because the uranium wastes would be loaded into trucks in Spokane. Commissioners were also offended that a private company was asking for public money to import nuclear discards.

They are less concerned about the safety of the wastes, which are about 20 times less radioactive than the nuclear discards shipped to Hanford’s low-level waste dump.

A leader in an Eastern Washington grassroots group fighting Dawn’s project hailed the commissioners’ vote.

It’s “environmental racism” to import more uranium waste to Dawn’s defunct uranium mill near the Spokane Indian Reservation, said Owen Berio of Springdale.

, DataTimes