Uranium Watch

76 South Main Street, # 7 | P.O. Box 344

Moab, Utah 84532

435-26O-8384

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 June 1, 2015

Mr. Reid Rosnick

Radiation Protection Division

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters

Ariel Rios Building

Mail Code: 6608J

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. 

Washington, D.C. 20460 

rosnick.reid@epa.gov

Dear Mr. Rosnick:

This this letter in in response to your April 24, 2015, e-mail regarding the EPA response 

to the failure of Denison Mines to provide information to the EPA in response to a request 

for information, pursuant to Section 114 of the Clean Air Act. In your e-mail, you state 

(in part):

This is in response to your email of April 7, 2015. Your first question is 

about Energy Fuels’ (then Denison Mines) lack of response to a request 

for information under the Clean Air Act (also known as a Section 114 

request). You are correct that EPA has enforcement authority to act if a 

facility chooses not to respond to a section 114 request. That enforcement 

authority is discretionary, and EPA decided not to use enforcement 

authority in this particular instance to obtain this information.

This Subpart W Rulemaking Chronology:

1. On February 24, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested 

information from Denison Mines (USA) Corporation (Denison), the White Mesa Mill 

licensee, pursuant to Section 114 of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

2. Denison responded to the February 2009 EPA request for information on June 1, 2009.
3. Then, on May 9, 2009, the EPA requested additional information, pursuant to Section 

114 of the CAA, regarding the tailings impoundments at the White Mesa Mill. The EPA 

requested that Denison conduct a program of testings to obtain certain data, including 

data on the radium content of the liquid effluents at White Mesa. The EPA informed 

Denison that that if they did not respond, the EPA could initiate enforcement action. 

4. For whatever reason, Denison did not respond to the request. It does not appear that 

the EPA sent Denison a reminder or asked Denison why they had not replied. 

5. Now you inform me that the EPA made a “discretionary decision” not to initiate 

enforcement action when Denison did not respond to the May 2009 Section 114 request 

for information. It is possible that no actual enforcement decision was made, it was just 

that the EPA forgot about the request and the fact that they did not receive a reply from 

Denison Mines.

6. Then in November 10, 2010, an EPA contractor finalized the Risk Assessment Revision 

for 40 CFR Part 61 Subpart W – Radon Emissions from Operating Mill Tailings: Task 5 – 

Radon Emission from Evaporation Ponds; S. Cohen and Associates. That Report 

included a formula, or equation, for determining the radon emissions from the White 

Mesa Mill liquid effluents, based on site-specific meteorological data and the radium 

content of the processing solutions. The formula, along with formulas for determining 

the radon emissions from liquid effluents at other uranium recovery sites, was set forth in 

Table 6, page 17. It is my understanding that the EPA did not make this Risk Assessment 

Report available on the Subpart W Review webpage until 2014.

7. As far as Uranium Watch is able to determine, the EPA has not questioned the validity 

of the February 2010 Risk Assessment with respect the methodology for determining 

radon emissions from the liquid effluents at the White Mesa Mill.

8. After the 2010 Risk Assessment Revision was developed for the EPA, the EPA did not 

seek data on the radium content of the solution impoundments in order to make use of the 

formula. Even if they did have earlier data, the EPA did not seek additional data during 

the years between 2010 and 2014, when the draft Subpart W Rulemaking was issued. 

Nor did the EPA request information when an additional tailings solution impoundment 

(Cell 4B) went online at the mill. In sum, the EPA did not request any data on the radium 

content of the White Mesa liquid effluents, so that they would have data to use in the 

equation that their contractor had developed. Nor, did the EPA seek already available 

information that was submitted to the Utah Division of Radiation Control regarding the 

radium content of the effluents in Cells 1, 3, 4A, and 4B. Therefore, the EPA did not 

have data on the radium content of the White Mesa liquid effluents over time and were 

unable to determine the radon emissions from those effluents over time, based on the 

EPA formula. Further, the EPA was unable to analyze the changing conditions that cause 

fluctuations in radium content and radon emissions or determine whether corrective 

actions were necessary to limit the radon emissions from these effluents.

Reid Rosnick/EPA 2

June 1, 2015
9. The EPA formula had been specifically developed to determine the radon emissions 

from liquid effluents at White Mesa, but without data on the radium content of the White 

Mesa effluents, the equation was useless as a means to determine the radon emissions 

from the White Mesa Mill liquid effluents as part of the Subpart W Rulemaking. It was 

also a useless for purposes of determining Subpart W compliance for the “existing” Cell 

1, pursuant to 40 C.F.R. § 61.252(a).

10. In sum, it appears that the EPA went out of its way not to have any data on the 

radium content of the White Mesa Mill liquid effluents, so that there would be no data to 

use in a formula developed by an EPA contractor, at taxpayer expense, for purposes of 

determining the radon emissions from the liquid effluents at the White Mesa Mill. As a 

result, the EPA avoided having any substantive data and conclusions that would call into 

question the long-held EPA assumption that the radon emissions from radium-laden 

liquid effluents at conventional uranium mills were “zero.” 1 

11. The EPA cannot establish requirements that will optimize protection of the public 

from the radon emissions from liquid effluents at conventional mills, if the EPA makes no 

effort to determine those discharges at the only operating mill. As discussed above, the 

EPA made no effort to apply science to the question of the radon emissions from the 

liquid effluents at the White Mesa Mill as part of the Subpart W Rulemaking. The EPA 

made no effort to analyze possible changes in conditions, such as changes in the radium 

content of liquid effluents, that could affect exposure of members of the public. 

The EPA, therefore, did not have the data necessary to develop a rule that would 

control radon exposures to the public from discharges from these liquid impoundments. 

There will be no EPA operational limit on emissions from liquid impoundments at 

conventional mills, because there was no analysis of the emissions by the EPA. 

12. There is clearly something very wrong with how the EPA has conducted the Subpart 

W Review, which was mandated by the CAA. There is clearly something very wrong 

with how the EPA has developed the proposed Subpart W rule. This is particularly true in 

light of the fundamental factual, technical, and legal inadequacies and errors in the 

proposed Subpart W rule.

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 Sincerely,

								 /s/

	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 Sarah Field

Program Director

sarah@uraniumwatch.org

Reid Rosnick/EPA 3

June 1, 2015

1 Appendix B to Part 61; Method 115, Monitoring for Radon-222 Emissions; 2. Radon-222 

Emissions from Uranium Mill Tailings Piles; Section 2.3(a); 54 Fed. Reg. 51654, 51709; 

December 15, 1989.