From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):
Accelerated efforts to close down contaminated facilities at the Superfund cleanup site are aimed at clearing a path for possible uranium processing in the future and do not indicate Cotter plans to leave the 2,600-acre site, vice president John Hamrick said. “We can decommission parts of the facility without moving towards license termination,” Hamrick said. “Our intention is to clear the path for new construction in the future.”[…]
EPA officials are reviewing Cotter’s letter arguing that the company can stop radon testing at the site as it decommissions it. Federal air-quality overseers “haven’t had that letter very long. They are evaluating the letter and determining what our response will be,” EPA spokeswoman Sonya Pennock said. “Our bottom line is, before this cleanup is complete, it’s going to have to meet all of the Superfund standards,” she said.
Fremont County Commissioner Mike Stiehl pointed out that Cotter’s current license to operate is a “standby” license that would have to be amended to allow any new processing of uranium. “If they were going to operate again, they would need to make it safer,” Stiehl said. “We would have plenty of concerns that they not repeat past practices. I still would prefer that they would do it in a different place. But we don’t have very much control over that.”[…]
Cotter’s dismantling will involve placing dirt on top of existing contaminated uranium tailings ponds. New construction of pads for chemically leaching concentrated uranium from ore could be constructed on top of the capped ponds, Hamrick said. Contaminated processing buildings and offices at the site will be dismantled, he said.