Radioactive Waste Headed to Utah
Radioactive material from Japan is heading to San Juan County and UPHE is vehemently opposed to it. The proposal to ship 136 tons of radioactive material from two atomic research sites in Japan across the Pacific Ocean to the White Mesa Mill just south of Blanding was approved in June without public hearings.
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(Photo courtesy of Energy Fuels Resources USA Inc.) The White Mesa Mill in southeast Utah is the last conventional uranium mill operating in the United States.
The controversial proposal “drew so many comments this summer that state regulators are still sifting through them months later.”
The mill is located a few miles from Ute Mountain Ute tribal lands in San Juan County near the original boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument, and various governmental entities and environmental groups have publicly opposed the Estonia plan. The San Juan County Commission, the Utah Navajo Commission and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe all submitted letters to the state this summer requesting that regulators reject Energy Fuels’ request to import the material from Estonia.
“Estonia, Japan, where will the radioactive waste come from next?” said Yolanda Badback, a Ute Mountain Ute tribal citizen and member of the White Mesa Concerned Community group
Read full Salt Lake Tribune article about this abomination here.