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In 1942, the Vanadium Corporation of America opened a uranium processing mill in Monticello, Utah. In 1944 the mill began to produce uranium and vanadium sludge for the Manhattan Engineering District. Four years later in 1948, the US federal government bought the mill.
Residents recall that when the mine was operational workers would be covered in yellow dust and people from the town wouldn't hang clothes out to dry on windy days to keep them from turning yellow. No one was warned about the health effects of uranium or exposure to the yellow dust that covered the town.
Throughout the 1950s the mill was the main plant for processing large amounts of ore taken from the canyons of southeastern Utah. In 1960 the Atomic Energy Commission closed the plant down.
The former mill site comprises 78 acres of land next to the city of Monticello. In 1989 the EPA placed the site on the National Priority List as a Superfund site in need of cleanup. The ground water and surface water are contaminated with uranium, as well as its radioactive decay products, thorium 230, radium 226, radon 222 and several other heavy metals from tailings deposited on the site, including arsenic, selenium, vanadium, molybdenum, manganese, and others. The levels of uranium in the groundwater presented a potential health threat to people in the vicinity.
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In 1998, the DOE tested the surface and ground water to determine the extent of contamination from activities at the miill. Based on this investigation, the DOE suggested action be taken, including institutional controls, to restrict the use of contaminated ground water. Treatment of contaminated surface and ground water during source removal, monitoring of the contaminated ground-water system, and construction of a permeable reactive-treatment wall for ground water at the mill-site boundary were all mandates from DOE. There were also restrictions that were placed on new groundwater wells near the plume and a permeable reactive treatment wall was completed down-gradient of the mill site.
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There have been 600 cases of cancer confirmed among the current and former residents of Monticello, whose population is under 2,000. The Utah Department of Health has labeled Monticello a cancer cluster. A town committee received grants to conduct cancer education and perform screenings for residents.
References
http://www.epa.gov/region08/superfund/ut/monticello/index.html
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