SOURCE: PAYDIRT

DATE: JULY 1997

MILLSITE RECLAMATION NEARING COMPLETION

Mill site reclamation nearing completion

RIVERTON, Wyo. (AP) - By the end of the year, a mining company that has maintained a presence in southern Fremont County since 1957, could be gone.

Western Nuclear is entering the fourth year of a project to reclaim land covered by tailings from the Split Rock Mill, which processed uranium ore until 1981, when a severe drop in the domestic market forced its closure.

This year, the company hopes. to reclaim the last 60 acres of the mill and tailings area. I Reclamation of the 270-acre site began in 1994. Western Nuclear, which was required by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to finish reclamation by 1998, is ahead of schedule, company officials said.

The company said it expects to complete all surface reclamation by the end of this year and concentrate next year on replanting the site with native vegetation and reclaiming the Cody shale clay mine near Jeffrey City.

Phelps Dodge, Western Nuclear's parent company, is funding the reclamation work, which has cost several million dollars so far, the company said.

Contaminated soil on the site is being removed and placed within a special area where it is covered with a clay barrier ranging from 6 to 44 inches thick to prevent radiation contamination.

The clay comes from the Cody mine site, where Western Nuclear has mined clay for four years.

In all, the company will use an estimated 1 million cubic yards of the clay, or the equivalent of a football field covered with clay 469 feet deep.

One foot of clean soil is spread over the clay barrier, and about 4 inches of granite rock mulch is spread over the soil to prevent erosion.

After reclamation is complete, the site will be transferred to the federal government and Western Nuclear will request the release, of the remaining $11 A million in the reclamation bond it had put up for the project. It will leave behind $500,000 to pay for long-term observation and maintenance by the U.S. Energy Department.

The Split Rock mill is Western Nuclear's last remaining property in Wyoming. The company sold its other Wyoming mine properties to U.S. Energy in 1988.