ABSTRACT
Uranium mining is the starting point for the nuclear fuel cycle. Two methods have been commonly used for mining uranium ore: underground mines and open pit mines. Most of the uranium mined in the United States has come from open pit mines. Uranium mines and mills operating between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s supplied uranium to the US government for use in its nuclear weapons program. Both surface and groundwater remediation are required by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978. In 1966 high levels of radon discovered in buildings in Grand Junction, Colorado, were determined to have come from uranium mill tailings beneath the buildings. Most of those tailings had been generated while processing uranium for use by the federal government. Most of those mills processed uranium primarily for use in commercial nuclear reactor fuel, although some of the uranium was for the US Department of Energy.
