As early as the 1960's, public pressure arose to impose additional control measures to govern the disposal of uranium waste materials. Although the environmental and financial implications of decommissioning uranium production facilities continue to attract widespread interest, very few data have been compiled on the subject and even fewer have been published. In 1993, the Energy Information Administration produced its first publication on this subject.

Decommissioning of U.S. Uranium Production Facilities

From 1980 to 1993, the domestic production of uranium declined from almost 44 million pounds U O to about 38 million pounds. This retrenchment of the U.S. uranium industry resulted in the permanent closing of many uranium-producing facilities. Current low uranium prices, excess world supply, and low expectations for future uranium demand indicate that it is unlikely existing plants will be reopened. Because of this situation, these facilities eventually will have to be decommissioned.

The Uranium Mill Tailings and Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA) vests the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with overall responsibility for establishing environmental standards for decommissioning of uranium production facilities. UMTRCA also gave the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) the responsibility for licensing and regulating uranium production and related activities, including decom-missioning. Because there are many issues associated with decommissioning—environmental, political, and financial—this report will concentrate on the answers to three questions: (1) What is required? (2) How is the process implemented? (3) What are the costs?

Regulatory control is exercised principally through the NRC licensing process. Before receiving a license to construct and operate an uranium producing facility, the applicant is required to present a decommissioning plan to the NRC. Once the plan is approved, the licensee must post a surety to guarantee that funds will be available to execute the plan and reclaim the site. (The surety must also include funds necessary for long-term monitoring of the decommissioned site that becomes the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Energy or the appropriate State agency.)

Although the environmental and financial implications of decommissioning uranium production facilities have attracted widespread interest, few data have been compiled on the subject and even fewer have been published. This report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) represents the most comprehensive study on this topic by analyzing data on 33 (out of 43) uranium production facilities. These facilities are located in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington.

The decommissioning process and associated costs are analyzed for both conventional and nonconventional (in situ leaching) facilities. Conventional operations excavate uranium ore by open pit or underground mining. The uranium is then recovered from the ore at a processing mill. The waste material (tailings) from the mill is then sent to a tailings pile. In situ leaching operations utilize a series of wells rather than mines to recover the uranium from the ground.

On average, tailings reclamation activities account for approximately 54 percent of the decommissioning costs for conventional uranium mills. Average decommissioning costs for a conventional production facility are $14.1 million: $7.7 million for tailings reclamation, $2.3 million for groundwater restoration, and $0.9 million for mill dismantling and $3.2 million for indirect costs (Figure ES1).

Because nonconventional (in situ leaching) operations do not require removal of ore to the surface, there are no mill tailings and surface disturbance is kept to a minimum. Groundwater restoration accounts for the largest share of decommissioning costs (40 percent of the total) at nonconventional operations. Of the estimated $7 million average decommissioning cost for nonconventional sites, groundwater restoration accounted for $2.8 million (Figure ES2). The wellfield reclamation costs were $0.9 million and the plant dismantling costs came to $0.6 million. Other costs (such as evaporation ponds, disposal wells, and radiological surveys) averaged $1.2 million. The indirect costs averaged $1.4 million.

Figure ES1. Estimated Average Decommissioning Costs, U.S. Conventional Uranium Production Facilities

Figure ES2. Estimated Average Decommissioning Costs, U.S. Nonconventional Uranium Production Facilities

The reader should take care to consider the results in context. Although sufficient data were obtained to analyze 80 percent of the uranium facilities identified in the study, the total number of production facilities is small, placing limits on an effective statistical analysis. In addition, cost data in this report are estimates. Actual costs are not readily available, because decommissioning activities, especially groundwater restoration, take years. The report confirms some general trends, but the "exceptions" take on greater significance in a small sample, and may indicate unanticipated problems that could be encountered at any site.

Although decommissioning costs are expected to continue to have an influence on future operations, improved designs for newer plants and tailings piles are expected to reduce their impact. Decommissioning costs are factored into future uranium prices, and the impact on production should be relatively minor, largely because other pertinent criteria—such as acquisition, exploration, development, and operating costs and market conditions—will be more influential in production decisions.