nuclear-news

Cancer legacy for a uranium milling town

A town under siege from Cancer, – Salt Lake City, Utah Newsby: Brent Hunsaker MONTICELLO, Utah (ABC 4 News) 7 May 2010, – The Uranium mill was big for little Monticello. Still, not everyone worked there. So why would people who never set foot on mill property still get cancer?

They didn’t go to the mill, but the mill, or at least the radioactive tailings from the mill, was brought to them.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s, the people of Monticello were actually encouraged to haul off the tailings. The more they hauled off, the less there was for the decommissioning crews to deal with later.
Fritz Pipkin is a life-long resident and a member of the committee fighting for government help for the 600 and counting cancer victims. He told me that when it was all said and done, 135-tons of tailings were hauled off and used in roadbeds, sidewalks, and kid’s sandboxes. Doctor Paul Reay at the San Juan County Hospital added that tailings were used to fill in around foundations and even to make bricks for homes……That’s one plausible explanation to the cancer that has reached beyond the Uranium mill works to touch just about every family in Monticello.

A town under siege from Cancer – ABC 4.com – Salt Lake City, Utah News

May 8, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium