User:Casseb/Falls City Mill Site

The Falls City Mill Site is the location of a 231-acre radioactive waste site in Karnes County, Texas, formerly the site of a uranium mill operated by Susquehanna-Western until 1973. The site was remediated between 1992 and 1994, under the provisions of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act.

History
The Falls City Mill was constructed by Susquehanna-Western, Inc. in 1961, following exploratory open-pit drilling and mining which began in 1959. Susquehanna-Western continued to operate the mill until 1973, during which time over 700 tons of Triuranium octoxide (Yellowcake) were extracted. The extracted yellowcake was then sold to the Atomic Energy Commission. The sulfuric acid leach process used to extract the uranium from 2.5 million tons of sandstone ore, in turn, created more than 3.1 million tons of tailings. These tailings were impounded into seven different ponds, or piles. These ponds were between 30-35 feet in depth and unlined.

Susquehanna-Western sold both the site of the mill and the tailings piles to Tepcore, Inc. in 1975. The property was thereafter sold to Solution Engineering, Inc. Solution Engineering, beginning in 1978, engaged in secondary recovery operations through solution mining in the tailings piles as a way to extract additional uranium. This operation involved a system of shallow injection and recovery wells to allow for the recovery of uranium and molybdenum. Solution Engineering ceased their secondary recovery efforts in 1982 and allowed for the wastewater in the tailings ponds to evaporate naturally. Once the fluids in the ponds had evaporated, Solution Engineering contoured the landscape, covered the tailings piles with 1-2 feet of local clay-rich soil, and replanted the area with native grasses.