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MOAB -- A pile of uranium mill tailings near the banks of the Colorado River is getting smaller.
The U.S. Department of Energy says 2 million of the 16 million tons of contaminated tailings at the old Atlas mill near Moab have been removed from the site. That's enough tailings to fill a 60-story building.
Congressman Jim Matheson released a statement Wednesday saying he is encouraged by the amount of cleanup that has gone on.
"Just five months after the first trainload of waste was shipped, this milestone has been reached," Matheson said. "It is very satisfying to watch this long-standing threat to health and safety in Moab and downstream, begin to go away."
The tailings contain low levels of radioactivity and are being loaded on trains and shipped to a disposal site 30 miles away.
Federal stimulus money helped fund the project, which should be completed by 2019.
