The president's budget for next year includes $22.8 million for planning and beginning the removal of about 18 million tons of uranium processing leftovers, a volume roughly 1 1/2 times the rubble removed from the World Trade Center collapse in New York.
The pile, which sits on the edge of the Colorado River north of Moab, leaches ammonia and other contaminants into water used by about 25 million people downstream in four states.
Last year, the Energy Department announced plans to haul the pile by train more than 30 miles north to Crescent Junction at an estimated cost of around $470 million. But the president's budget proposal contained less money for next year than the budget for this year.
"Oh, no. We need twice that much next year," said Judy Carmichael, vice chair of the Grand County Council, who predicted any delays beyond the 8-year estimated timetable would add to costs.
"Adding any length to [the cleanup] isn't productive for anybody."
This current budget year, $27.7 million is budgeted for the cleanup.
Don Metzler, manager of the project for the U.S. Energy Department's Grand Junction office, said the job might take an additional 14 years if such low funding levels continue.
"It slows us down rather significantly," he said.
Metzler noted that the Energy Department must prioritize many projects, some of them driven by regulatory compliance deadlines. And, because the Atlas cleanup does not face such deadlines, it might score lower in the department's ranking system.
Alyson Heyrend, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, noted that it is early in the yearly budget process, and supporters of the cleanup from both parties will start pushing right away for more funding. Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett are strong supporters of removing the tailings, as are lawmakers from the downstream states of California, Nevada and Arizona.
"We knew it was going to take a lot of work and that it was going to be an annual effort," she said, "and [Matheson] is prepared to do it."
Grand County last fall hired Jim Barker, a onetime aide to Bennett and former Rep. Jim Hansen, to lobby on behalf of their project. In addition, two council members are scheduled to go to Washington next week to advocate for it.
