EPA finalized a cleanup plan for a Navajo Nation site heavily contaminated by radioactive waste, a move community leaders describe as a step toward addressing the hundreds of abandoned mines that have contaminated their land for decades.
Slated to start early this year, remaining uranium waste rocks at the Quivira mines site, located in the Churchrock community near Gallup, New Mexico, will be hauled to a nearby newly created landfill designed to treat hazardous wastes, according to the action memorandum.
Removal action is expected to cost up to $183 million and will take place over the next six to eight years.
“This solution is a compromise that will get radioactive waste in this area off of the Navajo Nation as soon as possible,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a news release. “It’s not everything the three affected communities would wish for but it’s action in the right direction now rather than in the future.”
