Comments: Just history of the uranium milling and the poisons from the mill!
Legislature passes uranium cleanup bill
Rachel Alexander
The Daily Record
Publish Date: 4/29/2010
Colorado lawmakers passed the Uranium Processing Accountability Act, House Bill 1348, on a vote of 24 to nine Wednesday.
HB 1348 would require uranium processors to comply with clean-up orders before new applications are processed, strengthen public oversight of bonding requirements; require processors to inform residents about threats to their water if they have registered wells in close proximity to known groundwater contamination; and require processors to amend their operating license before accepting new sources of “alternate feeds.”
Cotter Corp. mill officials have said the bill will make it impossible for them to begin processing ore again in the future.
Ex-Cañon City mill worker receives cancer compensation
Lynn Boughton, former chemicist at the Cotter Corp. Cañon City uranium mill, finally received cancer compensation for the intestine cancer he contracted after having worked in the uranium industry for 20 years.
Although uranium concentrations 700 times the normal level had been found in his intestine, Cotter Corp. and Pinnacol Assurance, the Colorado workers compensation insuror, dismissed the claims his illness were work-related.
For 21 years, 70-year-old Boughton has fought Cotter and Pinnacol to obtain his disability benefits.
Pinnacol refused to pay Boughton's benefits despite orders from an administrative law judge and the state industrial claims appeals panel. Pinnacol appealed those rulings to the Colorado Court of Appeals, where it lost in November 1999.
Pinnacol and Cotter had argued that no causal relationship could be established between Boughton's cancer and his years of exposure to radioactive uranium dust in the Cotter mill. But Boughton provided testimony by a nuclear physicist and a medical doctor linking his illness to uranium exposure, the court of appeals affirmed.
Following the ruling, Administrative Law Judge Judge Cullen Wheelock on April 18, 2000, ordered Pinnacol to pay Boughton $427,148.65 in disability benefits and interest dating back to 1979, when his illness forced him to leave his job. (Denver Rocky Mountain News, May 22&23, 2000)
General Atomics acquires Cotter Corp.
General Atomics has acquired Cotter Corp from Commonwealth Edison Company (Nuclear Fuel, March 6, 2000)
General Atomics (GA) is to buy Cotter Corp from Commonwealth Edison. Reports speculate that GA plans to compete in the processing of 'alternate feed material' from the cleanup of government sites, and Cotter's Cañon City mill in Colorado would enable it to do that. Cotter is reported to have a uranium stockpile at the mill that could yield at least 800 000 lb U3O8 (308 tU). (UI News Briefing Feb. 16, 2000)
Lincoln Park residents awarded $2.9 million in Cotter Corp. lawsuit
Federal jury says uranium mill caused illness
On July 15, 1998, a federal jury awarded $2.9 million to 14 residents of Lincoln Park who were contaminated by Cotter Corp.'s Cañon City uranium mill during the 1970s and '80s.
The mill was in operation from 1958 to 1987. Liquid wastes containing radionuclides and heavy metals were discharged from 1958 to 1978 into eleven unlined tailings ponds. The ponds were replaced in 1982 with the construction of two lined impoundments. Prior to 1982, a number of Lincoln Park wells showed elevated levels of contamination.
Witnesses testified during the trial, how pollution, mostly dusty powder from the mill contaminated the residents' groundwater, vegetable gardens, lawns, and homes. Pollutants included uranium, molybdenum, arsenic, and other heavy metals.
The residents have suffered a variety of illnesses, cancer and arthritis.
One woman, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer.
Handicapped rodeo rider Jack Hadley has a condition known as multiple exotosis, or abnormal bony growths throughout the body. One expert testified that Hadley's multiple exotosis was caused by his mother's exposure to molybdenum while pregnant.
(Denver Post July 17, 1998, Business Wire July 17, 1998 )
An analysis of cancer statistics for the Lincoln Park neighborhood near Cañon City had found no statistically increased rate of cancer incidence. The study examined data collected by the State Health Department's Colorado Central Cancer Registry from 1979 through 1995.
> View CDPHE News Release May 1, 1998
On Feb. 11, 2000, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's decision and remanded the case for a new trial. (No. 99-1178 )
Restart of Cañon City mill
General Atomics (GA) is to buy Cotter Corp from Commonwealth Edison. Reports speculate that GA plans to compete in the processing of 'alternate feed material' from the cleanup of government sites, and Cotter's Cañon City mill in Colorado would enable it to do that. Cotter is reported to have a uranium stockpile at the mill that could yield at least 800 000 lb U3O8 (308 tU). (UI News Briefing Feb. 16, 2000)
On March 31, 1999, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment accepted Cotter Corp's Readiness Report for resumption of operations of its Cañon City mill, which was on standby since 1985. (CDPHE News Release March 31, 1999 )
The Cañon City mill, on standby since 1987, is to be restarted, according to Cotter Corp officials. Production is expected to resume within the next eighteen months after the company completes an estimated US$1.5 million refurbishing project on the mill that will improve processing and waste handling [UI News Briefing 96/38].
Read more:
http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopcc.html#BOUGHTON
http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/Top-Story.asp?id=13537
