Mr. WARD. That is without any recovery benefits at all?

Mr. ANDERSON. We evidently have a study, which, if you were only looking at restoring it and not doing anything else, we think it may be closer to $4,000 per acre. That is with the long-term care and monitoring and all that sort of thing.

Mr. WARD. Earlier you used the figure of $200,000 per foot. Mr. ANDERSON. Yes. That was in covering the tailings at Naturita. You saw the three tanks in the pictures. If you put 2 feet of soil on it, it costs you $200,000 for each foot. So if you put 6 feet of soil on it, it did not cost you $400,000, it cost you $1.2 million. That is why I think a little sense has to be used in those areas, because I think it gets a little wild.

Mr. WARD. You also said that the water had seeped down about 2 feet below?

Mr. ANDERSON. We have run a number of studies on the clays that we are putting these tailings on. This is the mancos shale geology. It is an impervious clay. In the process of about 20 years the water would penetrate about 2 feet into that.

Mr. WARD. What are the present requirements for maintaining this? How many years do you have to insure that the material will remain stable or undisturbed?

Mr. ANDERSON. Our arrangement with the Colorado Department of Health takes this form. We put up a long-term bond, in this case we bought I think $80,000 worth of AA bonds. We put them in trust to the State of Colorado. The income from those bonds is used to monitor the site and to make any repairs to it. We estimated it would cost $200 or $300 a month because, you see, you are really not doing anything but putting up a fence, and if it was a heavy rain or bad erosion you might do a little rework on the top of it, but that should not happen but every 10 or 15 years.

Mr. WARD. For how many years do you think you are going to have to watch this?

Mr. ANDERSON. I would think in my personal opinion, Mr. Ward, that in 5 years the complete restoration of the land would have taken place.

Mr. OTTINGER. Thank you very much.

Mr. BROWN. Is the process of uranium extraction or radioactive material extraction developing to the extent that lower level radioactive materials may at some future date be of value in terms of the extracting processes, or the process that you use?

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Brown, if I understand the question, there are one or two radioactive nuclei for which there is no particular market today. Though we now recover uranium traditionally in a range of 92 to 98 percent, as against in the early days when they recovered about 80 percent-and we are working old tailings-I think most uranium values that can be removed have been removed today. Radium we do not attempt to remove. There would be no place today to sell it if you did remove it.

In my experience over the years being in the mining business, it has been that things which were not valuable 25 years ago are very valuable today. In the case of the tailings pile at Durango, they were first mined for vanadium and uranium was left. Then during this Manhattan project they reworked them and removed most of the uranium using the technology they had then. So if you and I

were sitting here 25 years from today and studying the question, I think the question would be then for us to determine, "Would they have value?" and they very well might have.

Mr. BROWN. But the question really was about the technology. Is the technology evolving? Is it an evolved and mature technology or is it changing?

Mr. ANDERSON. No, I think as to uranium recovery it is mature technology.

Mr. BROWN. So the question is the economic value?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. BROWN. What is left at 92 to 98 percent? Is there any danger from it?

Mr. ANDERSON. I think others could speak to that, Mr. Brown, better than I.

Mr. BROWN. In your judgment?

Mr. ANDERSON. I do not think it is very dangerous. I have worked in the uranium mines and the level of radioactivity is much higher. I have worked many men for many years, and the only ones that have ever really shown any effect, to my knowledge, are those who were heavy smokers. They are the only ones that have suffered from working in uranium mines.

Mr. BROWN. Thank you.

Mr. OTTINGER. We will hear next from the representatives of the Governors of the Western States.

STATEMENT OF JOHN L. WATSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND GENERAL COUNSEL, WESTERN INTERSTATE ENERGY BOARD, ACCOMPANIED BY DON NIELSON, SCIENCE ADVISER TO THE STATE OF UTAH; AND DAVID JOHNSON, STAFF COUNSEL, STATE OF UTAH FEDERAL RESEARCH COMMITTEE

Mr. WATSON. My name is John L. Watson. I am executive director and general counsel to the Western Interstate Energy Board, which is an advisory board to western State Governors and legislatures on energy, natural resource, and environmental law issues. Accompanying me today are staff people who will be available to answer questions at the conclusion of the testimony. On my left is Mr. Don Nielson. He is the science adviser for the State of Utah; and on my right is Mr. David Johnson, staff counsel with the State of Utah Federal Research Committee.

Members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you on behalf of the Governors of the Western States for requesting this testimony on legislation pending before Congress to provide for the restoration of abandoned uranium milltailings sites. Governor Babbitt of Arizona had intended to be here to present his testimony. However, due to his recent illness and schedule conflicts he was unable to arrive in Washington, D.C., for these hearings.

I am pleased to appear before this subcommittee as representative of the western Governors, who like myself, are deeply concerned with the health hazard that uranium milltailings within our States present. May I also express on behalf of the western Governors our appreciation for the efforts which this subcommittee and Congress are taking to resolve this long-standing problem. In presenting testimony in support of this much needed legislation, it is hoped that the members of this committee need not be

persuaded as to the seriousness of this health hazard. Rather, I would only remind them that the problem has not diminished, that as our communities are growing and closing in around these radioactive sites, the difficulty in protecting the public has only been compounded.

Recognizing that there is a multiplicity of issues which this committee must carefully examine, I will limit my remarks today to a discussion of three basic issues which are of major concern to the States. They involve questions of: (1) Federal responsibility; (2) costs estimates; and (3) State input.

Of concern at this time is the role and responsibility of the Federal Government. Put simply, the question is whether the Federal Government has an obligation to fund a remedial action program for inactive uranium millsites.

There are two significant justifications for placing the responsibility for uranium tailings cleanup squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Government. First, it is now quite clear that the uranium procurement program was undertaken for the benefit of everyone in the United States. The uranium ore was processed for use in weapons, power development, and research-all in the national interest.

Permit me to quote from the "Atomic Energy Commission Annual Report to Congress," July 1950, in which it states:

The atomic energy industry employs forces that are as yet imperfectly understood; it is being developed at an unprecedented rate without benefit of the years of experience gained in other large industries; it is owned and controlled by the people of the United States; and it promises to be vitally important to the future of mankind.

The Federal Government, in sponsoring the raw materials procurement program, acted for and in behalf of the American people from whom it derives its purchasing power. The monetary costs were shared by the total populace. However, the environmental risks have not been equally distributed. In view of the disproportionate burden that would be placed on individual States to clean up the radioactive tailings, the cost of remedial action should rightfully be assumed by the Federal Government.

A second factor of major consequence is the degree of control the Federal Government exercised in operating the raw materials procurement program. From the outset, the Atomic Energy Commission chose the contractors, provided them with the necessary technology, regulated the supply of ores, set the ore prices, and was the exclusive purchaser of the processed uranium.

Furthermore, because the contractors were not required to have a tailings stabilization program, the price set and paid by the Federal Government for the uranium did not include this important cost of doing business. If, indeed, there had been funds set aside and an understanding of the magnitude of the cost necessary, the Federal Government would have made different choices in many cases as to contractors, millsite locations, and the price paid for the uranium. This would have allowed for a fund necessary to stabilize or remove the tailings and we would not be appearing before Congress at this time asking for such relief.

In the early 1970's when Congress first started looking at the problem of uranium milltailings and specifically those in Grand

Junction, Colo., the Federal Government contended that it had no jurisdiction over uranium milltailings because they do not constitute "uranium source material." However, let me refer you to a memorandum prepared by former AEC General Counsel Neil O. Naiden, which was presented before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy indicating that in fact, uranium milltailings located on the original millsite "are an integral part of the milling operation (and) for this reason they are subject to the Commission's regulatory control under the sited sections of the act.” May I submit a copy of that memorandum for the record, and also a copy of a memorandum prepared by the Utah State Attorney General's office addressing this identical issue.

Mr. OTTINGER. Without objection, that will be included in the record.

Mr. WATSON. The conclusion to be made from the above is that regardless of legal liability, there is substantial justification for requesting the Federal Government to fund a remedial action program. The tailings are the direct result of a program designed to protect the national interest, the Federal Government exercised enormous control over the procurement program, and, in fact, the Nation purchased processed uranium at less cost because of a failure to include in the purchase price the cost of developing and implementing an adequate reclamation procedure.

As just indicated, one of the difficulties in not distributing the cost of tailings cleanup to the general populace of the country, is that individual States who already bear a disproportionate share of the risks of radiation exposure, would also be burdened with a disproportionate share of remedial action costs. In States such as Colorado and Utah where the radioactive tailings are located dangerously close to highly populated communities, the cost of tailings cleanup would amount to $38 million for the State of Utah and $64 million for the State of Colorado.

Absent figures for Cannonsburg, Pa., the cost estimates for conducting a remedial action program for all sites listed in H.R. 12229, which was recently reintroduced as H.R. 12398, in 1976 dollars vary from a low of $43 million to a high of $122 million.

In June 1975, the architectural engineering firm of Ford, Bacon & Davis under phase II of an Energy Research and Development Administration contract commended the preparation of alternative solutions, preparation of cost estimates, and detailed plans and specifications for alternative remedial action measures for cleanup of the 21 inactive uranium millsites. Late last year reports containing the cost estimates for alternative remedial action measures at each of the 21 inactive uranium millsites were completed.

The remedial action alternatives vary from minimal action such as placing a fence around the inactive millsite, to the more extensive process of removing the tailings from an existing site and stabilizing the removed tailings at a long-term disposal site. For some sites, the location is sufficiently removed from populated and anticipated populated areas as to warrant only minimal remedial action.

However, a few millsites such as Grand Junction and Vitro Chemical in Salt Lake City, Utah, as indicated above, are too close to populated areas and require more extensive remedial measu

Let me submit for the record a synopsis of the cost estimates for remedial action on each of the sites referred to in H.R. 12229 as prepared by Ford, Bacon & Davis, as well as an addendum to this testimony.

Mr. OTTINGER. Without objection, that will also be included in the record.

Mr. WATSON. With reference to H.R. 12535, in which the Department of Energy is calling for the Federal Government to fund 75 percent, and the States 25 percent of any remedial action, I should indicate in behalf of the western Governors that such a formula is totally unacceptable.

To impose such a funding arrangement would virtually preclude undertaking the kind of remedial action that is minimally necessary for many States. Such a formula would require States to come up with as much as $10 million to $12 million.

In addition, many States have already spent large sums in attempting to reduce the problem of radiation exposure. Colorado, to date, has already spent in excess of $2.5 million, and by the end of this calendar year expects that figure to reach $3 million.

I would not, by the previous statements, intimate that the uranium procurement program provided no benefit to the States in which the millsites were located. Tax revenues from income and property taxes provided a source of revenues to the States during the period of the AEC contracts. Such benefit, however, has been completely outweighed by the funds that States have already appropriated in cleanup and monitoring programs, as well as lost revenues from inability to put these tailings sites to any marketable use.

In conclusion, I would like to briefly address the issue of State input into the remedial action process.

It is important to keep in mind that many States have been living with the problem of uranium tailings exposure for over 30 years. In many instances, individuals have been living in the same area for that same period of time, creating a considerable risk of contracting some form of carcinogenic disease.

In view of the problems created by radiation exposure over extended periods of time, the States are charged with the responsibility of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens, the States would be negligent in their duty if they did not request input in, and concurrence with, the remedial action which is ultimately undertaken.

Because of the questions regarding the liability and ultimate responsibility for the uranium tailings once they have either been stabilized in place, or removed to a long-term disposal site, it is again imperative that the States concur in the location of the disposal site. They must also have input regarding the standards and criteria which are developed to insure that the purposes of the legislation, to protect the public from radiation exposure, are achieved both in the short and long term.

In behalf of the western Governors, again, I applaud the efforts of this committee and the Congress in taking positive measures to resolve the problem of radiation exposure in our States. We certainly hope that a bill can be reported out expeditiously so as to start bringing a conclusion to this long-standing health hazard.