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Spook Leaching Facility Site                                          

Spook Leaching Facility Site  (Preliminary)
Converse County, Wyoming


Years of Operation Status of Mill
or Plant Site		 Uranium Ore
Processed
(Million Short Tons)		 Production
(Million Pounds U3O8)
1962-1965 Decommissioned 0.19 0.35
Mill/Plant Area
(Acres)		 Disposal Cell
Area
(Acres)		 Disposal Cell
Radioactive
Waste
Volume
(Million Cubic Yards)		 Disposal Cell
Total Radioactivity
(Ci, 226Ra)		 Disposal Cell
Average Tailings
Radioactivity
(pCi/g, 226Ra)		 UMTRA Project
Final Cost
(Million Dollars)
55 6 A 0.32 125 320 10.11
   A Estimated by the Energy Information Administration based on disposal cell dimensions published for the Spook upgrader site.
   Notes:  Uranium Ore Processing and Production are estimated based on historical data. Production includes uranium in slime concentrate from Monument No. 2 upgrader plant. Radioactivity from radium-226 in the stabilized mill tailings is stated as total curies (Ci) and as average picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of tailings. A picocurie is 0.037 radioactive disintegrations per second. Radium-226 (1620 year half-life) is a decay product in the uranium-238 series. It undergoes radioactive decay to produce radon-222, which is a noble gas, an alpha emitter, and the longest-lived isotope of radon (half-life of 3.8 days).


Map of Wyoming showing the location of the Spook Leaching Facility. Having trouble? Call 202 586-8800 for help.

Location:   The site is located approximately 48 miles northeast of Casper, Wyoming.

Background:   The Wyoming Mining and Milling Company’s Spook Leaching Facility upgraded uranium to concentrate ore before shipment to a mill in Jeffrey City, Wyoming. The site covers about 55 acres, of which about 5 acres was used to bury residual radioactive materials.

UMTRA Surface Remediation:   Remedial action began in April 1989 and was completed in September of the same year. The residual radioactive materials were stabilized in an inactive open pit mine on the site. Wyoming’s Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) program assumed responsibility for backfilling the open pit with uncontaminated soil and restoring disturbed areas.1

Responsibility for Remediation:   U.S. Department of Energy and the State of Wyoming Abandoned Mine Lands Program.

Stewardship:  

Disposal Area:   The clay soil covering is 3.46 meters thick, consisting of a 0.46 radon/infiltration barrier and 3.0 meters of granular soil. In a tailings pile 16 meters high, there are 170,000 metric tons of tailings.

Radioactivity in Cell:   The average radioactivity is 320 pCi/g, Ra-226. Total radioactivity in the disposal area is 125 Curies, Ra-226.




1. UMTRA End-of-Project Report, U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Restoration Division, Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 1999, page 97.


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