Uranium mines slated for cleanup

By Carson Walker, Associated Press Writer | Sunday, November 27, 2005

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LUDLOW — For Randy Feist, who lost a kidney to cancer, the estimated $22 million cleanup of Cold War-era uranium strip mines can’t happen soon enough.

He was born and raised in the sparsely populated far northwestern South Dakota area known as Cave Hills. He worries about his four children — and wonders why it took so long.

“If there would have been more people here, this would have been cleaned up 40 years ago,” Feist, 47, said.

The 13 contaminated bluffs on Custer National Forest land are in Harding County, an area about the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, with a population of about 1,200.

Tests show levels of arsenic, uranium and other contaminants in concentrations higher than what occurs naturally, according to Laurie Walters-Clark with the U.S. Forest Service in Camp Crook, coordinator of the Riley Pass Abandoned Uranium Mines project.

And local health-care workers say “a lot of the people they treat do have cancer,” she said.

But figuring cancer rates is difficult because of the sparse population, Lon Kightlinger, South Dakota Health Department epidemiologist, said.

He said 89 Harding County residents died of cancer from 1969 to 2002, which is a cancer death rate of 166 per 100,000 population. The statewide rate for that period is 187 deaths per 100,000, Kightlinger said.

“Compared to other counties, Harding County actually had one of the lowest cancer rates in the state,” he said. “I was surprised.”

However, Kightlinger said he does not have data showing the number of cancer survivors, such as Feist.

The restoration plan is to take soil that was pushed off the top of the bluffs and use it to cap exposed areas and eliminate toxic runoff, Walters-Clark said.

“Our goal is to stop that sediment from moving,” she said.

Feist said runoff has created huge gullies in the land where his cattle graze five months of the year.

“See how deep that cuts,” he said while prodding his pickup through one groove.

“This is Bluff B. This is the big one,” Feist said of the land mass up the hill from the rut. “You get up there, there’s nothing growing. It’s like a moon landscape.”

Feist said he had a cancerous kidney removed in September 2004 and that all of his siblings, two brothers and three sisters, have had thyroid ailments.

Despite that, this straight-talking rancher has not lost his sense of humor and offers praise for the person leading the cleanup effort.

“I think it would have been kicked under the rug if it weren’t for Laurie Walters-Clark,” he said.

Of the 13 bluffs in the remediation project, eight were mined in the 1960s by what is now Kerr-McGee, Walters-Clark said.

The company is negotiating with the government but has not agreed to pay for the cleanup, she said.

“It is the largest mined area. It is not the most toxic,” Walters-Clark said. “It is contributing the most to the environment sedimentation.”

Laws at the time did not require miners to reclaim the land.

Officials at Kerr-McGee of Oklahoma City did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Smaller “mom-and-pop operations” mined uranium from the other five bluffs, but there is no way to seek compensation from them, Walters-Clark said.

Other bluffs on private land may also need remediation.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which is providing technical assistance on the project, also approved $200,000 so the Forest Service can check contamination on private property, David Rathke, an EPA official in Denver, said.

“From there, we’ll decide what we’ll need to do with the material,” he said.

Some work on the Forest Service bluffs could happen in 2006, such as fencing and pond construction, but the major cleanup will start in 2007 at the earliest, Walters-Clark said.

Feist is optimistic but wary.

“It took 40 years to have a meeting to let us know it’s bad,” he said. “So I’m not holding my breath.”

Mining history goes back 50 years

History of uranium mining, cleanup and restoration in northwestern South Dakota:

-- 1954: First major uranium mining starts.

-- 1962: Major uranium mining developed under contracts through U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Mining was permitted unrestricted under the General Mining Laws and Public Law 357 and required no form of restoration. Strip mining involved overburden (topsoil) being pushed off outer edges of pits on top of bluffs. Exposed radioactive material was left when mining ended in 1964. Kermac, now Kerr-McGee, expected to make a profit of more than $2 million.

-- 1962-1964: U.S. Department of Energy said Kerr-McGee mined 28,934 tons of ore, from which it extracted 156,657 pounds of uranium oxide.

-- 1965-2004: Road sections rebuilt because of erosion; dikes, dams and ponds built to trap runoff and sediment; sediment removed from two of five ponds.

-- 1992: Environmental assessment completed for Bluff B, the largest disturbed area but not the most contaminated. It revealed high levels of Radium 226, elevated levels of arsenic, lead, iron, molybdenum and selenium. Forest Service did not recommend cleanup because of high reclamation costs of more than $2 million.

-- 1996: Custer National Forest started review to determine if cleanup could be funded under CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act).

-- 2002: Investigation showed waste in sediment ponds from Bluff B required action. Kerr-McGee declined agreement to clean ponds, build a new pond and restore the site. Total cleanup cost estimated at $14 million. Forest Service installed warning signs warning that exposure could cause health problems.

-- 2005: Environmental engineering evaluation and cost analysis reports were delivered to Forest Service and public comment period ended Sept. 8. Discussions with the state of South Dakota, Environmental Protection Agency and American Indian tribes continue. Forest Service continues to seek CERCLA funding for remediation of eight bluffs mined by Kerr-McGee. Discussions are ongoing between Forest Service and Kerr-McGee on remediation funding. Forest Service continues to assess other abandoned uranium mines that could pose health risks.

Source: Custer National Forest