CANON CITY, COLO. (AP) -- The company that owns a former uranium mill in southern Colorado wants to leave 15 million tons of radioactive tailings at the site along the Arkansas River.
According to the Denver Post (http://tinyurl.com/a6lyex7 ), Cotter Corp. has told the Colorado health department that it would cost more than $895 million and 5 1/2 years to remove the hazardous waste using trucks that would pass through Canon City.
The company and the health department have long assumed the waste would stay at the Superfund site following its cleanup but residents are worried that ponds holding the tailings could leak.
Gov. John Hickenlooper's office is forming a 15-member community advisory group to help guide cleanup at the mill, which was declared a Superfund environmental disaster site in 1984.
Community meetings begin Feb. 28.
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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
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