![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
National Information |
||
|
||
|
| ||
|
Superfund Program
Monticello Vicinity Properties
|
Site Type: Completed NPL City: Monticello County: San Juan Street Address: 9 North 3rd East Street Zip Code: 84535 EPA ID#: UTD980667208 Site ID#: 0800679 Site Aliases: Monticello Radioactively Contaminated Properties, Store in Monticello, House in Monticello Congressional District(s): 03 |
Site Description
In all, 424 properties have been contaminated with radioactive mill tailings from past uranium and vanadium ore-processing operations at the Monticello Mill site in southeastern Utah. These properties are known as the Monticello Vicinity Properties (MVP) site.
The Department of Energy (DOE), the State of Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered into a Federal Facilities Agreement to clean up the contamination on these properties in December 1988.
The Monticello Vicinity Properties are 424 private and commercial properties in and around the city of Monticello, Utah, covering approximately four square miles.
The properties are near an ore-processing mill that the federal government established during World War II to produce vanadium, a steel hardener, for the war effort. Vanadium, though not radioactive itself, usually is found in the same ore with uranium and radium; therefore, the processing wastes contain significant radioactivity. Soon after construction, the mill began processing uranium (yellow cake), which may have been used for the Manhattan Project.
Uranium production continued until 1960, when the plant was closed and dismantled. Contaminated dust from the Monticello Mill tailings piles blew onto these vicinity properties mostly within the city. Also, tailings from the mill site were used as construction material, backfill and as sand mix in concrete, resulting in the radioactive contamination of some vicinity properties in Monticello. The Mill Tailings site is located immediately south of the city, in the flood plain of Montezuma Creek.
EPA added the Monticello Vicinity Properties site to the National Priorities
List on June 10, 1986.
Site Risk
Exposure to radioactive materials could be harmful to human health. Direct contact with and/or inhaling or swallowing the kind of radioactive material found in tailings dust may affect lungs and bones. Also, inhalation of radon gas that results from the radioactive decay of radium 226 could harm lungs.
| Media Affected | Contaminants | Source of Contamination |
| Soil, debris, air | Radioactive mill tailings and dust from tailings piles, radon gas emanating from radioactive decay products | Uranium milling wastes |
Cleanup Progress
The site is being addressed through federal actions according to a Federal Facility Agreement. The DOE is the Responsible Party, although the contaminated properties are not on federally owned lands. EPA and UDEQ share CERCLA (Superfund) regulatory oversight responsibilities.
In 1989, EPA, DOE and UDEQ signed a Record of Decision (ROD), which selected a remedy to clean up the vicinity properties by excavating and removing the contaminated tailings, soil and construction material from the vicinity properties and storing them at the site. About 152,000 cubic yards of material were removed from the vicinity properties and have been relocated to the repository that was constructed about a mile south of the former millsite.
Cleanup has now been completed on all of the vicinity properties. EPA deleted
the site from the NPL in February 2000.
Site Documents
Note: the following documents are Adobe PDF filesAbout PDF files
Five-Year Review - June 2007 (PDF, 47 pp, 1 MB)
Five-Year Review Update - June 2008 (PDF, 2 pp, 25KB)
Contacts
|
EPA Paul S. Mushovic Ted Linnert |
Utah David Bird Dave Allison |
|
US Department of Energy Joel Berwick |
View Documents at: Information Repository Administrative Record |
