Cotter Corporation N.S.L. has decided to shut down the uranium mill in Canon City. Company officials have decided not to renew the license to operate the uranium mill once it terminates in January next year.
The announcement was made on Monday in a letter to the health department from the officials of Cotter Corp. President Amory Quinn said in the letter that Cotter Corp. has concluded that it is no longer economic to proceed with uranium processing at its Canon City facility.
The uranium mill was used to process uranium for weapon grade and fuel grade uranium. The mill has not been in operation since 2006 and the company officials have since been tearing down old mill buildings and disposing them off in tailing ponds. There has been an assessment to see if it was economically feasible to build a new mill there.
Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a state health department press release that this was good news for the Canon City community. He added that they appreciated Cotter Corp.’s containment and cleanup efforts and look forward to the company’s continued involvement in the community as remediation and decommissioning activities occur over the next 10 to 15 years.
Sharyn Cunningham from the environmentalist organization Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, said that they thought this was the first sign of serious progress on getting this place cleaned up. They have stated now that they are going away she added that the challenge was to see that they clean it up properly before they do.