# 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, 20159. 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.