[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 23, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  STOP THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FROM SENTENCING SOUTHWEST TO 
             NEARLY 300 YEARS OF RADIOACTIVE DRINKING WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell you of the danger faced 
by 25 million people who get their water from the Colorado River 
because of radioactive waste leaching from an abandoned mine waste pile 
that is located only 750 feet away from the Colorado River.
  This deadly waste pile, abandoned by the Atlas Corporation, sits in 
the Moab Valley of southeastern Utah. The Colorado River, flowing past 
this site just south, provides water for 7 percent of the United States 
population, including Las Vegas, Arizona and the southern California 
urban areas of Los Angeles and the city I represent, San Diego.
  Legislation that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) 
and I have introduced, H.R. 393, would move this contaminated pile away 
from the Colorado River. Yesterday, the Project on Government 
Oversight, known as POGO, released a report recommending moving the 
pile as the most reliable way to save the growing population of Nevada, 
Arizona and California from having the highly contaminated waste leak 
into their water supply for the next 270 years.
  I pledge to continue to fight to move this pile, lest my constituents 
and most of the Southwest be forced to live under a sentence of 
radioactivity and contaminants in their drinking water for nearly 3 
centuries. This is an unacceptable sentence and would likely be a death 
sentence for many. I cannot sit idly by while polluters and the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission inflict this on innocent people.
  Recently, this commission which, has jurisdiction over cleaning up 
the site, issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement stating that 
Atlas' plan to cap the radioactive pile is, quote, environmentally 
acceptable.
  Is it environmentally acceptable to cover 10.5 million tons of 
uranium mill wastes with rock and sand where the river can reach it 
during the spring runoff and cause a public health crisis? With the 
pile only 10 to 20 feet above the underground water aquifer, highly 
concentrated ammonia will continue to seep into the ground water. If 
the runoff is bad for three endangered species of fish, as the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledge, it 
surely is deadly, over time, for our children and our grandchildren.
  This POGO report details a clear problem with the NRC's jurisdiction 
of this pile, and our bill, H.R. 393, addresses this by removing the 
responsibility for the pile to the Department of Energy, which has the 
technology and experience with cleaning up sites and protecting public 
health.
  When the Department of Energy has been involved with contaminated 
sites along the Colorado River, it moved, and did not just cap, the 
sites with uranium concentration levels of less than 2 milligrams per 
liter.
  The uranium concentration levels at Moab which I am talking about 
exceed 26 milligrams per liter, and yet the NRC pushes forward with its 
plan, forcing the Fish and Wildlife Service to sign off on the sand 
capping plan just because the NRC lacks the authority to move this 
pile.
  As the report illustrates, it is past time to move this deadly pile, 
and to move jurisdiction for moving it to the Department of Energy, 
which will get this life-and-death job done.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge support for H.R. 393.

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