Congress ordered updated cost projections based on a cleanup timetable that is nearly a decade shorter than the DOE's. The department had been planning to spend about $30 million a year through 2028 to remove the leftover uranium waste piled up on the banks of the Colorado River outside of Moab.
U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the new cost estimates are "radically different" from the projections of a couple of years ago.
"I question why doing the project more quickly will cost more money," he said.
Matheson called the department "nonresponsive and uncooperative" in providing financial estimates to Congress in the past.
He and Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett have joined local officials in pushing for the 2019 completion. They also have pressed hard to pay for getting the uranium-processing waste moved by truck or rail from Moab to a specially constructed disposal cell at Crescent Junction, about 32 miles north.
But securing annual funding is likely to be much tougher when the annual costs are between $79 million and $103 million from 2010 to 2019, as the DOE estimates. The total cost would be between $844.2 million and $1.1 billion, under the projections DOE submitted in a report to Congress on Tuesday.
"While I acknowledge the progress that has been made, I am concerned we will continue to face escalating costs the longer it takes to remove the tailings," said Bennett. "This report [released Tuesday] underscores the need to complete the project as quickly as possible."
DOE spokeswoman Joann Wardrip said the latest estimate is not much different from what was projected after an 18-month review. That included all the programs in the DOE's Office of Environmental Management that were noted in fiscal year 2009 budget documents the department submitted to Congress a few months ago. DOE said then that to clean up the Moab site by 2028 would cost between $723 million and $951 million.
On the estimates for an accelerated cleanup, Wardrip said, "It's a modest increase in price to get the job completed faster."
The agency's goal, she added, is to finish the cleanup safely, thoroughly and as quickly as possible.
The 16 million tons of tailings have leached ammonia, uranium and other contaminants into the Colorado River, which about 50 million people in seven states rely on for water.
fahys@sltrib.com
