GAZETTE TELEGRAPH

July 12, 2002

Shipments to Cotter held

State bars new waste until safety issues addressed

 

By Barry Noreen The Gazette

 

Dissatisfied with Cotter Corp.'s response to several radiation-related violations found at its Cañon City mill, the state's Radiation Services Division has temporarily barred the company from receiving radioactive material.

 

In a letter to Cotter on Tuesday, Radiation Services Division program manager Jake Jacobi wrote he is "especially concerned about unresolved issues relating to doses to radiation workers." Shipments of nuclear waste or ore for processing was suspended "in the interest of worker safety," the letter said.

 

Jacobi said Wednesday that Cotter can resolve the issues and regain the ability to receive radioactive wastes and ore within two or three weeks. The suspension does not apply to any radioactive material en route at the time the order was given and the mill can process ore already on the site.

 

"It's really in Cotter's court," Jacobi said. "I have told them I will make my staff available."

 

Some of the violations found in April involved record-keeping, but Jacobi said the suspension has to do with "more than documentation. They need to modify some procedures, but some progress has been made. It's not like they're stonewalling."

 

"We're thinking of it as a bump in the road," said Rich Ziegler, Cotter's executive vice president. "It is nothing that is insurmountable."

 

Sharyn Cunningham, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, said the state's action "is the worst thing they've ever done to them."

 

Members of Jacobi's staff found 16 radiation-related violations at the mill in April.  The violations included evidence one worker's urine contained dangerously high levels of uranium, and the revelation the testing of a pregnant worker was inadequate.  Regulations on radiation doses to fetuses are more strict.

 

Controversy has shadowed Cotter. The company lost a series of lawsuits by residents living near its operation who said the mill's contamination was responsible for birth defects and deaths. In February, Cañon City residents mobilized against Cotter's plan to accept up to 470,000 tons of radioactive soil from a Superfund site in Maywood, N.J., in the next five or six years.

 

None of that waste has reached Cotter, in part because public reaction resulted in state legislation requiring the firm to hold more public hearings. Those meetings have been held and sometime in the next few weeks, Jacobi's staff will recommend whether the plan for the Maywood waste should be allowed.

 

Cunningham's citizens group has been applying pressure on other fronts. The group is urging the Fremont County Commissioners to impose an importation fee on radioactive waste - a measure that has passed in other areas around the country.