Cleaning up a toxic legacy
“Few realize that making fuel for nuclear reactors begins at uranium processing mills where human life and health, and our environment, are being sacrificed. Few know because it happens in small, rural communities short on resources to fight for protection,” said Sharyn Cunningham, a mother and activist with the Cañon City group, Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste (CCAT).
Sharyn and her family moved to Cañon City in 1994. For over eight years, without knowing, her family drank well water contaminated with uranium from a nearby uranium mill owned by the Cotter Corporation. To date, Cotter has failed to clean up uranium groundwater contamination first detected at the mill in the 1960s.
In 1983, the State of Colorado sued Cotter for $15 million because of environmental damages. One year later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed Cotter on the Superfund National Priorities List for toxic waste clean-up. It’s been more than 25 years since Cotter was designated a Superfund site, yet the corporation has still failed to meet clean-up orders. In some instances, pollution is even spreading.
During that time, residents of Cañon City and the Lincoln Park neighborhood have suffered. At the height of contamination, lung pollution among male residents was an astounding 40 percent above the national average.
In the last nine years, Cotter’s uranium mill was cited for 99 violations, including failure to curtail deadly radon emissions (radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer) and an expanding groundwater plume of toxic metals. Now, Cotter plans to reopen the mill in 2014 without any guarantee that it will clean up its toxic mess.
In response to the ongoing problems at Cotter’s mill and the corporation’s intentions to reopen it, Environment Colorado has teamed up with CCAT, the Energy Minerals Law Center, the Western Mining Action Project and the Colorado Environmental Coalition to pass legislation that would ensure we address the problems at Cotter first and prevent any new processing facility from ending up in the same situation.
“It is just plain old common sense that a company should clean up its toxic mess before it can renew or expand operations,” said Matt Garrington, an advocate with Environment Colorado.
The issues at Cotter are not unique. Uranium processing facilities across the state have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions to clean up, including $500 million for the Grand Junction Climax mill.
