Sampling the water
Samples of contaminated ground water at the Moab Wash show concentrations that exceed EPA levels. These examples are from a list of 20 chemicals that exceed limits.
Chemical: EPA standard (As measured)
Ammonia: 30 (185.3)
Chloride: 250 (711.9)
Arsenic: 50 (170)
Lead: 15 (305)
Uranium: 30 (940.3)
Waste sites moved
In contrast to the Moab situation, the Department of Energy has moved nine waste sites away from rivers in the following areas.
- Grand Junction
- Rifle (2 sites)
- Slick Rock (2 sites)
Moab, Utah There are places in Utah's Canyonlands where a visitor can go to be alone, so alone that the only sounds are the wind whispering up the chiseled canyons and the Colorado River lapping at its muddy banks.
Mankind's contribution to this scene is quiet, too.
Just 750 feet from a gentle bend in the river, radioactive material is leaking from an immense pile of nuclear waste and toxic chemicals.
An independent study ordered by the federal government shows that each day, as much as 28,800 gallons of it is seeping into the Colorado River. The same Colorado River that provides San Diego County with 62 percent of its water.
This is the nation's largest radioactive dump remaining by the edge of a major river. And because of a quirk in a 20-year-old set of federal regulations, it appears likely to stay where it is.
Radioactive contamination is highest along the squishy riverbanks nearest the pile: 31 times higher than Environmental Protection Agency standards. The mix of chemicals also found there can kill wildlife and is dangerous to humans in high concentration, federal officials acknowledge.
The toxicity diminishes as the water flows past the nearby town of Moab,which attracts millions of outdoor enthusiasts each year, and begins its 1,000-mile trip into San Diego County's faucets.
There is bitter disagreement over what should be done with this vast dome of waste, left over from Moab's glory days as a uranium boom town in the 1950s and early '60s.
Nine smaller nuclear waste piles in the Southwest -- some less than one-tenth the size of Moab's -- have been moved away from streams and rivers and buried at safer locations.
Donald Metzler, a Department of Energy official who supervised several of these expensive removals, said getting the waste away from rivers was a prime consideration when his agency weighed cost against safety.
Protecting the water was so important, Metzler said, that several of the piles were moved even though they met the federal requirements to be left in place.
But the Moab site presents special problems.
At 130 acres, it is larger than any of the nine sites already moved, covering about the same area as the San Diego Zoo.
It is also the most toxic, with 10.5 million tons of radioactive waste mixed with poisonous chemicals used in the milling process.
Perhaps most significant, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an agency that doesn't have the money to move the pile or the regulatory power to get it moved.