The Energy Department "close[d] a chapter on the Cold War" this week when it announced the completed cleanup of nearly two dozen "massive radioactive piles of sand" at its uranium ore processing mills (Mike Taugher, Albuquerque Journal, 8/25).
The DOE held a celebration in Grand Junction, CO, on Wednesday to mark the end of the national cleanup project that removed enough hazardous material to cover 23,000 football fields one foot deep. Contaminated material from 22 uranium milling sites in 11 states was cleaned.
The tailings removal project, begun in the early 1980s, became a "model for similar projects around the world" (Nancy Lofholm, Denver Post, 8/27).
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