Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
have been paid. Table 99 indicates the categories of payments made to employees of the uranium
mining industry as of 2007. As of February 2011, 23,500 claims under the act were approved
(expending a total of $1.6 billion).
Table 99. Uranium worker compensation – April 1992 through June 2007
Category
Claims
Approved
Claims
Denied
Claims
Pending
Total
Payments
Uranium Miner 4,560 2,661 208 $455 million
Uranium Miller 1,000 239 33 $100 million
Uranium Ore Transporter 217 70 7 $22 million
Total 5,777 2,970 248 $577 million
Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRA)
This act of Congress in 1978 was passed to ensure that uranium mill tailings be managed and
cleaned up as appropriate, and that every reasonable effort be made to provide for the
stabilization, disposal, and control in a safe and environmentally sound manner of such tailings in
order to prevent or minimize radon diffusion into the environment and to prevent or minimize
other environmental hazards from such tailings. Title I of UMTRCA designated 22 inactive
uranium ore processing sites for remediation, including Shiprock and Ambrosia Lake in New
Mexico. Remediation of these sites resulted in the creation of 19 disposal cells that contain
encapsulated uranium mill tailings and associated contaminated material. These sites are currently
managed by the Office of Legacy Management within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
When the act was passed, there were a number of active processing sites that are now covered
under Title II of the act and were licensed by NRC. The DOE currently administers these sites.
Shiprock Site Cleanup
This site is licensed to DOE and was turned over to the Office of Legacy Management in 2003. A
groundwater cleanup and management plan is in effect at this site and will continue.
Ambrosia Lake Site Cleanup
This abandoned mill processing site located about 25 miles north of Grants was remediated
between 1987 and 1995. Materials have been encapsulated in an engineered disposal cell and
isolated from the environment, but will be monitored by the DOE and the encapsulated materials,
according to the DOE fact sheet on the site, will be “potentially hazardous for thousands of
years.” This is an abandoned processing site and not a mine.
USDOE/Corps FUSRAP Memorandum of Understanding
In 1999, the DOE signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to take over a remedial action program (RAP) for formally used sites (FUS) involving
the cleanup of areas used for atomic bomb making, nuclear fuel rod processing and manufacture,
and research. Some of these sites are located in New Mexico, such as Acid Pueblo Canyon, Bayo
DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest 439