From the Cañon City Daily Record (Karen Lungu):
John Hamrick, vice president of Cotter mill operations, sent a letter to the director of Air and Toxics Technical Enforcement Program Office of Enforcement Compliance and Environmental Justice, dated July 23, stating, “On June, 30, 2010, Cotter Corporations (N.S.L.) submitted a letter to Mr. Steve Tarlton of the Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division of Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment notifying him of a change in status of the Primary Impoundment at the Cañon City Milling Facility near Cañon City.” The letter stated that Cotter will “close both the primary and secondary impoundments as soon as reasonably achievable.” Hamrick goes on to say the Cañon City milling facility began dismantling structures and facilities no longer considered useful to the CCMF. The company no longer will carry out radon flux testing, Hamrick said, at the primary impoundment, because the primary impoundment no longer is an active facility that is subject to 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart W requirements.
Previously stating the mill would reopen, Cotter took local lawmakers by surprise when they told regulators it would discontinue testing for radon emissions at the site because it is no longer an active facility subject to regulation. The mill south of Cañon was designated a Superfund site in 1984, making Cotter responsible for continued monitoring of radon emissions at the milling facility, as well as neighboring Lincoln Park.