EPA HEARING ON SUBPART W 

DENVER — SEPTEMBER 3 AND 4 

URANIUM WATCH COMMENTS 

 Below are written comments that were, generally, presented in the first session of 

the Environmental Protection Agency hearings on proposed changes to 40 C.F.R. Part 61 

Subpart W on September 3, 2014, in Denver, Colorado. Uranium Watch will be 

submitting written comments with more detailed information on the issues below and 

other aspects of the proposed rule. 

1. The Subpart W proposed rule is contained misleading, incomplete, and false 

information. 

2. The EPA failed to place relevant documents on the Subpart W website. 

3. The EPA sent letters to uranium mill licensees asking with questions about their mills 

and 11e.(2) byproduct material impoundments, but failed to send letters to the 

Sweetwater and Shootaring Canyon Mill licensees. The White Mesa Mill licensee failed 

to respond to the EPA May 2009 request for information. 

4. The EPA’s justifies the elimination of the radon emission standard for “existing” 

impoundments, including the monitoring and reporting requirement by various claims. 

The EPA claims that White Mesa Mill Cell 3 will close at the end of 2014. This is not 

true. Energy Fuels is keeping Cell 3 open to receive ISL waste because it cannot dispose 

of ISL waste in the new Cell 4A until more solid tailings have been disposed of in Cell 

4A (so there is a base for the burial of the ISL waste) and until there is a license 

amendment authorizing disposal of ISL waste in Cell 4A. Also, there must be an 

approved radon closure plan and reclamation milestones for Cell 3 incorporated in the 

White Mesa Mill license for the cell to enter the closure period. 

 The EPA claims that both the Shootaring Canyon and Sweetwater impoundments 

comply with the requirements for “new” impoundments in 40 C.F.R. § 61.252(b). This is 

not true. The Shootaring Canyon impoundment does not have a synthetic liner, as the 

EPA claimed in the proposed rule. It has a clay liner. The Sweetwater impoundment is 

60 acres, much larger than the required 40 acre impoundment. 

5. The EPA should remember that Subpart W is an “emission” standard under the Clean 

Air Act. Yet, the EPA intends to completely eliminate any semblance of an emission 

limit for radon from operating uranium mills. Now there will only be design and 

work practice standards for conventional, ISL, and heap leach facilities. The proposed 

rule does not comply with the requirements of the Clean Air Act at Section 112(h). 

Section 112(h) states: 

(h) WORK PRACTICE STANDARDS AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS.
Uranium Watch/EPA Subpart W Hearing Comments 

2 

September 4, 2014

(1) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of this section, if it is not feasible in the 

judgment of the Administrator to prescribe or enforce an emission standard for 

control of a hazardous air pollutant or pollutants, the Administrator may, in lieu 

thereof, promulgate a design, equipment, work practice, or operational standard, 

or combination thereof, which in the Administrator’s judgment is consistent with 

the provisions of subsection 

For the purpose of this subsection, the phrase ‘‘not feasible to prescribe or enforce 

an emission standard’’ means any situation in which the Administrator determines 

that— 

(B) the application of measurement methodology to a particular class of sources is 

not practicable due to technological and economic limitations. 

 What this means is that for the EPA to promulgate a design, equipment, work 

practice, or operational standard, or combination thereof, IN PLACE OF an emission 

standard for control of a hazardous air pollutant, the Administrator must find that it is not 

feasible to prescribe or enforce an emission standard. Not feasible would mean that “the 

application of measurement methodology to a particular class of sources is not 

practicable due to technological and economic limitations.” 

 The EPA Administrator has not made such a finding, nor could she make such a 

finding. The EPA didn’t even include a discussion of this requirement in the Subpart W 

rulemaking. 

 In sum: the EPA must have radon emissions limits for “existing” and “new” 

conventional, non-conventional, and heap leach impoundments. 

6. The Evaporation Pond Risk Assessment at Table 2: Radon Flux for Various Radium 

Concentrations shows the radon flux from three conventional mills and the eight ISL 

facilities for radium concentrations of 1, 100, and 1,000 pCi/L. The Risk Assessment 

concludes, “The fluxes at the largest concentration, while below the criteria, are not 

negligible.” However, the largest concentration is not the actual concentration, it is the 

concentration per 1000 pCi/L. So, a pond with a concentration of 36,700 pCi/L would 

have a radon flux far in excess of the current 20 pCi/m2

-sec criteria. The Risk 

Assessment should have, but did not, compare the actual radon flux for the various 

evaporation ponds 

 Table 2 fails to include, for comparison, the actual radium concentrations for the 

evaporation ponds at ISL and conventional mills. There is no data in the Subpart W 

Rulemaking Docket regarding the radium concentration in liquid impoundments at the 

Sweetwater and White Mesa Mills. So, information regarding the actual radon flux from 

those mills is completely disregarded by the EPA. Therefore, the EPA has no basis for 

the assumption that those emissions will be “very low” (what ever that means). 
Uranium Watch/EPA Subpart W Hearing Comments 

3 

September 4, 2014

 There is recent data regarding the radium concentration at the impoundments at 

the White Mesa Mill.1 The White Mesa Mill 2013 Annual Tailings Wastewater 

Monitoring Report2

 provides data on the Gross Radium Alpha (pCi/L) for the liquids in 4 

impoundments. Cell 1 is a liquid evaporation pond, Cell 4B is being used as a liquid 

impoundment, and Cell 3 and Cell 4A have a liquid pond on top of the more solid 

tailings. The information for Table 1 is based on the assumption provided by the EPA 

that a White Mesa liquid impoundment has a radon flux of 7.0 pCi/m2

-sec for every 

1,000 pCi/L of radium. Unfortunately, the EPA never required the White Mesa licensee 

to report on the radium content of the liquids in the tailings cells and calculate the radon 

flux based on those measurements. 

 Table. 1. White Mesa Mill Radium Concentration and Radon Flux for 2013.

 

1

http://www.radiationcontrol.utah.gov/Uranium_Mills/denison/tailingswastewater_rpt.htm

2 White Mesa Mill 2013 Annual Tailings Wastewater Monitoring Report; Groundwater Quality 

Discharge Permit, UGW370004, Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc., November 1, 2013. 

http://www.radiationcontrol.utah.gov/Uranium_Mills/denison/docs/2013/dec/2013AnnualTailing

sReportFinal.pdf
Cell Gross Radium 

Alpha 

Radon Emissions 

Cell 1 32,700 pCi/L 228.9 pCi/m2-sec

Cell 3 81,900 pCi/L 573.3 pCi/m2-sec

Cell 4A 15,800 pCi/L 110.6 pCi/m2-sec

Cell 4B 14,600 pCi/L 102.2 pCi/m2-sec

 The data for White Mesa Mill liquid impoundments does not support the EPA’s 

claim that radon emissions from evaporation ponds “will be expected to be very low” and 

“the chance of radon emissions is small.” In fact, at the White Mesa Mill, the radon 

emissions are very high. Yet the EPA does not consider these emissions when 

determining compliance with the current radon emission standard for “existing” 

impoundments. In 2013, that was Cells 3 and 2. 

Sarah Fields 

Program Director 

Uranium Watch 

PO Box 344 

Moab, Utah 84532 

435-260-8384 

sarah@uraniumwatch.org