April 7, 2021 by Sharon Sullivan – Salt Lake City native Jim Moore was aware of Grand Junction’s uranium mill tailings legacy when he moved to western Colorado in 1981. However, it wasn’t on his mind, nor did the seller or real estate agent mention the presence of radioactive mill tailings when he bought a house there in 2010. He’s not alone.

From the 1940s through the 1970s, uranium was refined to make atomic weapons, which produced huge piles of radioactive waste in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Tailings piles sat unprotected for nearly two decades at some mill sites where private citizens and contractors would come load up pickup trucks with the free sandy material to use for construction or landscaping purposes. Uranium mill tailings consist of ground-up ore, radioactive elements, and, potentially, other heavy metals.

Unwittingly, people who lived near mills in Colorado and Utah used the tailings in foundations and walls, or as a soil amendment to break up clayey soil. Municipalities used the contaminated dirt as filler underneath sidewalks, streets, and around utilities.

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