As a Chemistry Professor at the Univ. of Utah, I arranged for students from the RADIOCHEMISTRY CLASS to tour the site for instructional purposes over 5 years. The DOE is not only removing the radiological contaminants that you mentioned, but they are also removing the chemical contaminants (such as toxic organic chelators, acid, and lots of ammonia) that was used to make the yellowcake uranium product that was sealed in 55 gal. drums and shipped to various locations for further chemical processing and ultimately to an isotopic enrichment plant. DOE contractors monitor the groundwater at and near the reclamation site and the nearby Colorado river. I like to think I am a non-biased observer to the operation, and in my opinion, the DOE and the private contractors operating this site and the tailings repository 20 miles north, are doing an outstanding job of keeping the public and the environment safe. I frequently recreate in the Moab area, as well as downstream in the Colorado river and Lake Powell. I am very happy that the DOE stepped in to clean up the toxic mess that was left on the site by two private companies from the 1950's through the 1980's.
I agree, with them doing a good job there. It’s great that they’re cleaning up the area. I’m sure the chemical contamination is pretty crazy there. Usually mill sites have a lot going on.
Thanks. A lot of the sites I visit are ones that I find very interesting and have a story to tell. I hope to keep it going and show some sites people have a bunch of questions about. There are so many areas that have been approached by officials in a horrible manner. I’m hoping I can change that and find a middle ground where the truth usually is found.
Being a former Arches National Park ranger back in 2005, I lived just a mile up the road from this place and back then they hadn’t started really cleaning it up yet (at least hauling it out). That was two years later. A lot of rangers were really worried about that whole process. There is a sand dune area across the highway from the Arches entrance that was radioactive and families would always stop there and let their kids roll down the dunes.
I know which sand dune area you’re talking about. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m down there. There are so many uranium deposits and uranium mines in the area it’s very hard to completely avoid it.
@hillgamingofficial the train cars didn’t happen to be there when I was filming. But I’ve seen them a bunch and they are totally sealed for transport. They also spray them down to keep and contamination from leaving the site. In the summer months when it’s hot they spray all the roadways down and all the work sites to keep the dust down.
Man .. I was at those dunes a few yrs ago now I regret reading your post . It's sad to think that our back yard is contaminated, . Looks like I gotta save up to buy a fancy anti cancer box.
@cgonzo801 even if you played in that little sandy area around Arches you’ll be fine. Also unless I see readings from a radiation detector I can only go on rumor. If it was dangerous they (the DOE) would close off the area. Some places are going to be naturally radioactive. Uranium deposits are naturally occurring. Uranium mining doesn’t make an area radioactive. It might bring more of that material to the surface but usually it’s very localized. Plus uranium isn’t that radioactive.
Before marches had roads my family would take jeep up to the arch. Cavern had stone slabs on the flow and I was told to watch out for rattle snakes. My dad would resupply in Grand junction..he drove a 49 Mercury and I would sit on a box of dynamite in the back seat in able to see the river. Also camped at the mines when school was out and would collect dinosaur bones. Still love the desert and mining history..kudos for the fine work you do! I'm now 78 years old.
Drew, I really like your content. I appreciate your hard work to keep us informed on places that are important not only for safety reasons but also have significant historical importance. While we can't save everything as a relic of the past may these videos serve as a headstone to the places that are no longer their original form so that people can experience the past while enjoying the future
This is a fantastically well put together six minutes of video. Wow. It all makes sense now that I learned from your projectionist videos that your background is in cinema. I believe CZcams encourages every installment be a 25 minute novella from everyone but a well curated short video like this is often just right. Looking forward to the next one.
Yeah, not all my videos are long. Sometimes a good story can be told in a short way. Glad you liked the video. Next one might be about a uranium mine that I venture into.
Glad the DOE decided to clean it up and movie it to Crescent. The railroad made it possible to move the tailings compared to the Mexican Hat Mill and others which were just capped with sand and rocks.
That makes me happy. I think more people should have radiation detectors of some kind. We live in a radioactive world and I do believe it helps us understand more about that world.
I’m so glad to hear that. One of the main points behind me making this content is to better inform the public on radiation. I had a bunch of fears of radiation before I started down this path. But once I learned more and more my fears turned into understanding.
Drew hi from Alberta Canada great episode. Was at Arches last year and I wondered what the massive excavation was about. I share your 'anything radioactive" interests keep it up please. Look fwd to your next posting.
I visited Arches three times in 2021 and Cayonlands once. I drove down into Moab to resupply at the City Market. I wondered what that was on the side of the road. Thanks for making this video! Delicate Arch is my favorite place in Utah! I liked to hike up and see the sunset from the top rim. ❤
I think you well and surely earned my sub, From chilling out next to a spent fuel pool to Projectionist to taking a trip to a lesser known hotspot that is being cleaned up.
@@RadioactiveDrew I think I found your channel when you covered the radioactive item that gif lost here in Aus, only just noticed yesterday I still wasn’t subbed .
There was also a uranium and vanadium processing mill in Grand Junction CO. Climax mill. Also along the CO River in a sugar mill building that they took over. That area was remediated and is now the site of Las Colonias park.
@@RadioactiveDrew I met with a realtor there last month and I think he was telling me that they have a survey done before purchases. Because the mill gave away tailings as it was a nice material for fill, and other uses etc, before it was found to be a bad idea. If you make it there, side visits to the CO Natl Monument and also the Grand Mesa are interesting.
What would make an interesting video is about Fukushima, the water they stored there. How they treated it to remove the heavy elements, and what remained and why its safe to dump back into the ocean. Because there's a lot of fearmongering going around Japan releasing the treated water back into the ocean. I also remember years ago just after the meltdown people posting videos of taking readings of around California and basically being natural background radiation, but was saying it was Fukushima fallout.
Believe me, it very high on my list of videos to make. I’m actually in the perfect place to start with a video about that whole situation…right next to the Columbia River. Once I’m done with all this Oppenheimer 70mm film business I’ll be working on that video. Might even go to Japan.
@@RadioactiveDrew yeah, with the latest news the past few days on news media channels putting radiation into the video title and has many people in a uproar, and quite a few spreading misinformation due to ignorance of the subject, and the news media is feeding into that ignorance, it's maddening.
Just look up how much Radiation the nuclear La hauge "recycling plant" in france releases every year in to the Ocean. Then the tritium water from Fukushima is like nothing.
One of the truly admirable things about the USA is the superfund cleanup system. Sure! Sure! Its awfully goddamn expensive, but it does demonstrate a true commitment by the US to clean up after its past excesses. You certainly wouldn't get this in the ex-Soviet bloc.
@ElRel yeah, when it works correctly and doesn’t do heavy handed stuff like destroying an entire town because they use to mine and process uranium there…I’m talking about Uravan btw.
Thanks for the video, I worked on another uranium processing plant in the late 70's, it was west of there in Ticaboo . I never did glow in the dark , but . . .
It is possible that an voltage is being induced into the fence from the high tension lines overhead due to the alternating fields. It looks like the fence and lines run parallel for a significant distance, but like you stated it would be bled off into the ground. Interesting side note is that at the power plant I worked at all the chain link fence had grounds strapped to some of the posts.
As long as the high voltage power lines, I’m going to guess 220 kV, are 25 feet or higher from the physical ground there won’t be any inductance to the fence and then direct to ground via the fence posts. The grounds on fence posts was to ensure a short circuit to ground if an energized conductor touched a fence. At our substations every fence post all the way around the perimeter had a large ribbon ground which was attached to the mesh copper grounding
It is a literal electric fence similar to a cattle pasture fence. The tailing pile is a bit more radioactive than fiestaware at contact. Won't be enough to hurt you to visit but wouldn't want a house built on it.
One thing that's always fascinated me about mining processes is they get exponentially better over time. That alaska gold mining show, in a lot of circumstances those placer claims those guys were mining was material that had been placer mined decades before, and better technology and better equipment allowed them to recover more gold and still turn a profit. I really wonder, if they managed to get 90% of the uranium out, how much by weight still remains? Rather than packing it all up in railcars and moving it, it's worth wondering if it would be more valuable to reprocess the ore again to remove everything radioactive from it, and leave the dirt where it is. Based on the counts you were seeing, it's probably only exciting as the material was concentrated by human activity, if it had been as a result of hydrothermal activity the gov wouldn't care. I always love a bit of errata on weird stuff happening out in the hinterboons.
Hey Drew, love your channel!! Just wondering, have you ever been by the Marysville Utah mining district? I mean, since you are around here in Utah and all. Not sure if all the mines are closed up, but when I was a kid, there were so many uranium mines just wide open, waiting for the curious adventurers. My best buddy’s dad was the boss at the biggest mine there, before they closed them all up. Anyway, just a suggestion. May be a bust, or maybe not. Thanks for your work, love the content!
The mill tailings are being removed in case of the possibility of catastrophic flooding due to the possible collapse of Dillon Dam in Summit County. Dillon Dam is unstable. If you drive by the dam in the winter while on I-70 look up at the left side of the dam and you will see an inverted crescent or horseshoe shape that will be snowless while the rest of the dam is covered with snow. The crescent is the area that is moving causing friction which melts the snow . If it were to collapse the flood would carry the tailings down stream all at once contaminating downstream lakes , irrigation ditches ,agriculture areas, canals, etc..
It really wouldn’t matter if that area flooded in regards to the tailings. Like I said there are plenty of natural deposits of uranium that the river runs through that put far more contamination than the tailings do or can do. The main reason they are removing it is so they can use that land for something else.
I’m glad I have your support. I really like doing science and filmmaking stuff. So I could see the focus of this channel being that for a while. I did just get a Traeger as a gift and have been cooking on that…so maybe some cooking shots might make their way into some videos.
I remember staying at the Atomic Motel in the 80s. It's now Kokopelli Lodge. Everything was named after the uranium mining for a time. Idk how much of that is still visible. Uranium frenzy came out in 2002.
There’s still some leftover stuff like that in Moab. There’s still the Uranium Building on Main Street. I know there are some roads in town that reference mining in some fashion. The uranium boom was crazy. It was a government subsidized gold rush.
@@RadioactiveDrewAs uranium prices continue to rise, the La Sal district south of Moab will resume production. One of my buddies is working at the Pinyon Plain mine in Arizona; they're in all-out development targeting a high-grade uranium orebody in a breccia pipe. The Joe Dandy mines around Naturita are also viable, and the Sunday and Whirlwind complexes have resumed preproduction activity.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, EF calls those their La Sal Complex - several of them are interconnected. One of the guys who worked down here in 2019-2020 is from Moab and worked there for a while too. We like to purchase underground equipment from the Moab guys; they've got a lot of it that sits when the mines aren't running. The breccia pipes are indeed interesting. Their grades tend to be two to four times higher than the Moab-area mines, but depth and geometry makes them more capital-intensive to develop. Can't just poke a short decline into a canyon wall when the orebody is 1400' down.
One of the main reasons for moving the tailings to Crescent Junction, about thirty miles from the Colorado River, is the likelihood of the River changing its course in the next thousands of years, as this is what rivers do over time (or a major flood at any time), which could wash all those radioactive tailings down south through Nevada, Arizona, and California. That thought convinced many congressmen in those states, who never want to spend money on anything, to approve the billions it is costing to move the pile. I have never heard of the idea of it being prime real estate, since people would still be leery of living on top of what’s left (“did they get it all?”) One idea is a big parking lot for nearby Arches Ntl Park, from which busses would take people into the park. Another is just a big green park area to walk around in, but not for too long. We still have a few years to plan, while they cart away the rest of the stuff up to Crescent Jct. There was no big movement there against the plan, nobody lives there, there’s just a cafe and a horribly overpriced gas station.
driven by that a hundred times... there is a spring right up that canyon behind you, the city has posted signs and recommended to not drink because of the radiation. Signs are gone, and I drink it all the time. I'd love to see that water tested.
The tailings pile use to be at the same level you were standing at when you made the video. It was huge. I use to go by there everyday. You should go there after it rains. The detectable levels go way up.
Hi Drew, great video. Speaking of old mines, have you ever been up to the Day Break Uranium mine North East of Spokane? I dont know much about it, but was wondering if you hadl ever been there? And if that material went to the Hanford site? Thanks for a great channel man😎
I haven’t checked out that mining area yet. I would like to because a couple other people have brought it up. It’s very possible that uranium went to Hanford. I don’t think they were very picky where they got it from when it was full blown weapons manufacturing.
Once again, you're killing it. What are you using to shoot with? Are you shooting 8K and then exporting to 4K? Amazingly crisp and clear shots. Amazing color on this vid and the past videos like Opp part I , part II and white pocket. Another great vid Drew. I hope you get to produce shorts and professional level docs. You da man
One note, the audio for first 2min was great. Then about 2:06 you changed a mic or re-positioned it perhaps? then again another audio change at 2:20 . The first 2 min seems better to me. 😀
@dan_in_sd yeah, mic placement was pretty good for those first couple minutes. Then the wind shifted my mic a bit. Then the second part was from another day with a different mic.
Totally missed the first comment. I’m shooting everything on a Sony A7S3 and a DJI Air 2S drone. I edit everything on DaVinci Resolve. Everything is shot in 4k and the upload is in 4k as well.
i grew up in moab , the sand hill they are talking about was not radioactive, the state road used it to sand the roads in the winter .My grandfather and 3 of my uncles worked at the mill .
@@macimages4215 yeah I agree in a way because land is usually not flat but empirical curvature experiments done over water and frozen lakes show no curvature.
Hey Drew, wish you were here on the East Coast with me I’ve got problems brewing in Plymouth Massachusetts with the Pilgrim nuclear power plant. I wish we could go sniffing around with your dosimeter. Anyways thanks for the videos God bless you and your family be safe.
Nothing that I can think of. If you head south towards Moab, plenty of uranium mines out there. You could always check out a local antique shop. More than likely they will have something radioactive in there.
Very interesting hobby, i am curious what triggered your interest in radiation? I would love if you had the opportunity to test the Better Geiger on these trips, would love to have an instrument and the radiacode is very expensive in Canada but the BG seems a bit more affordable. Love the videos ,very interesting, you are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful area especially for your passion hunting radioactive materials.
I've always been interested in radiation. But once I found out you could buy a small Geiger counter on Amazon and find radioactive items all around, I started my journey. The push came from watching a video on CZcams about someone else's collection. The Better Geiger is a great little detector. But I really like the functionality of the Radiacode and I enjoy using the Radeye B20 a lot.
It’s electrified to keep animals out Never touch a metal fence especially minimal ones that seem easy to just leap over etc. Look for boxes cameras and other stuff. Secure areas will bury them somewhere close as they need to be repeated due to termination points. One method around this is to string two lines. You need to bridge the gap to active it. Vs just touching one. But it’s bare wire. You are water and metal 😂🙏
it's possible there is current in the wires from AC transmission lines.. using an IR camera would show it, as they weould be warmer than they should be..
@HarryDaltonGS thanks. I don’t use LUTs from other companies or people. I usually shoot some test charts when I’m at a location and use a color space transform along with hue vs hue and hue vs color to dial in the colors on the vectors cope. Then some light grading with curves, saturation and color wheels. Gerald Undone has a couple of great videos on how to do all this.
Drew... my comment has nothing to do with this particular video... But.. after watching your video on materials contamination, and several Chernobyl videos, I started to ask myself why the disposed vehicles and equipment could not have been washed and "wiped" of radioactive contaminants once radioactivity decayed? Thanks!
Some materials are harder to decontaminate from. Usually uranium mill tailings can be washed off of machinery. It also depends on how long that machinery has sat in that contaminated material. There can be a degree of penetration into paint and metals. There is some equipment at Chernobyl that is still contaminated because some of that cleanup might have been with uranium fuel elements or something that emits a high amount of neutron radiation. Neutron radiation can make other non-radioactive items radioactive. Neutron radiation isn't common in the majority of radioactive isotopes. But in a nuclear reactor there is a high intensity of neutrons as that's what keeps the fission reaction going.
I’ve been to Rocky Flats and walked the northern perimeter fence with my detector. I didn’t see hot pots and the radiation level seemed normal for the area. I want to go back and do some more investigating on the site. I would imagine the site that is off limits in the middle is still contaminated. Anything that emits alpha radiation makes helium. The alpha radiation is helium with a positive charge. It quickly picks up 2 electrons after its emitted. All helium on earth comes from radioactive decay.
ive been wondering what all the traincars i have seen with the radioactive placards were about. i know its common in utah but ive driven through there a bunch of times in my Semi and the length of the consist always made me curious.
4:12: "Your honour, ladies & gentlemen of the jury, this court has no cause to convict me of trespassing right past those signs, since from general knowledge of ordinary-level high school physics, it was obvious the electrified fence sign was a lie - and if that sign was an obvious lie, then I had no reason to believe the other government signs right next to it weren't also lies. My affirmative defence is that one of those signs not being believable, none of these signs were believable as being anything other than an obviously false scare tactic. I just exercised my freedom of movement while ignoring obvious lies, as false as any false advertising."
@@RadioactiveDrew So would I. Just not as the actual defendant. But if anyone tries this, and I'm not saying you should, but if you do, please let us know.
I’m sure they are taking radiation measurements as they remove material. I would imagine they would have a limit to go down before they would backfill the area to cut down the exposure…if they couldn’t remove it completely.
Good grief! I was just there in April. Drove right past this site, like 3 or 4 times! So this means I’m all covered in radiation?! That sucks! Am I going to get cancer or something now? Great! Just great.
You’re fine. I should have explained a little more how someone could become contaminated. If you hoped the fence of that site, went down to the piles of dirt they are working on and rolled around in it you would be contaminated. But if you changed your clothes and took a shower you would be decontaminated. Exposure to radiation doesn’t make you radioactive. Having something that is radioactive on you or in you can make you radioactive for a little bit.
Could you see if the workers were wearing any protective gear? Do you think they work in shifts so they’re not exposed too much or is it really that dangerous where they are working? I wonder if they even know everything about what they’re working on.
I don’t think they are wearing suits. I usually don’t see people walking around on the tailings piles. Also there isn’t a suit that will protect you from radiation. The suits are usually worn to make it easier to decontaminate yourself after being in a contaminated environment. Everyone there knows exactly the type of environment they are working in. They will also be fitted with personal dosimeters that they will wear for the whole shift. If they cross a radiation exposure threshold then they rotate out. I want to say that nuclear workers have a federal limit of 5000 mrem of exposure in a year that they can take before getting pulled.
I worked on the Monticello UT mill about 50 miles south of Moab. clean up protective gear consisted of hard hat, safety glasses, thin gloves and booties to cover the steel toe boots we are required to wear. Remember the tailings have had most of the radioactive material removed. The biggest concern was Radon gas.
@dougbrown8331 the tailings doesn’t have most of the radioactive material removed. It has some of the most radioactive material in it. Uranium is what they’re extracting and what’s left over is a bunch of other radioactive elements like radium. Radium is a million times more radioactive than uranium.
0:55 Where I'm currently sitting, the background radiation is usually between 0.14-0.17 micro sieverts. Currently, my Geiger counter is reading 0.16 micro sieverts.
This reclamation has been going n for a long time. I really hope they can get all of the mill tailings disposed of properly, especially since it's super close to the Colorado river.
I’m sure they can get all of the mill tailings out of there. I’m curious as to how far down the contamination goes since uranium and radium are water soluble. Once it hits a clay layer I would imagine that would slow it down a bit.
@@RadioactiveDrew same here. Every time I pass through or stay in Moab I always ask the locals for updates. Seems to be going well, hope it continues to do so!
I would imagine it would be on the same level as a uranium miner. But it also might be a little higher only because of the elevated level of radium in the tailings.
I worked at that site in 2007 and other hazmat sites all over U.S. . They monitor personal radiation with film badges and other detection devices when leaving hot zone .They also make you wear protection, tyvek suit , booties, gloves. This protection is thrown away every time you exit hot zone. You also have to take RAD WORKER 2 course which is an 40 hr course . They had a lot of oversite on that site that watched pretty much your every move . The people that knew the most about radiation said as healthy adults we were not in much danger with our safeguards in place . Water trucks and dust control was very important and visible dust would stop work. They were very strict on booties too saying going home with dust on cloths and shoes endangered your children. You stay very clean on a RAD job.
As a Chemistry Professor at the Univ. of Utah, I arranged for students from the RADIOCHEMISTRY CLASS to tour the site for instructional purposes over 5 years. The DOE is not only removing the radiological contaminants that you mentioned, but they are also removing the chemical contaminants (such as toxic organic chelators, acid, and lots of ammonia) that was used to make the yellowcake uranium product that was sealed in 55 gal. drums and shipped to various locations for further chemical processing and ultimately to an isotopic enrichment plant. DOE contractors monitor the groundwater at and near the reclamation site and the nearby Colorado river.
I like to think I am a non-biased observer to the operation, and in my opinion, the DOE and the private contractors operating this site and the tailings repository 20 miles north, are doing an outstanding job of keeping the public and the environment safe. I frequently recreate in the Moab area, as well as downstream in the Colorado river and Lake Powell. I am very happy that the DOE stepped in to clean up the toxic mess that was left on the site by two private companies from the 1950's through the 1980's.
I agree, with them doing a good job there. It’s great that they’re cleaning up the area. I’m sure the chemical contamination is pretty crazy there. Usually mill sites have a lot going on.
I'm a big fan of your channel. I think I have been to 98% of the sites you have showcased. Great work!
Thanks. A lot of the sites I visit are ones that I find very interesting and have a story to tell. I hope to keep it going and show some sites people have a bunch of questions about. There are so many areas that have been approached by officials in a horrible manner. I’m hoping I can change that and find a middle ground where the truth usually is found.
Being a former Arches National Park ranger back in 2005, I lived just a mile up the road from this place and back then they hadn’t started really cleaning it up yet (at least hauling it out). That was two years later. A lot of rangers were really worried about that whole process. There is a sand dune area across the highway from the Arches entrance that was radioactive and families would always stop there and let their kids roll down the dunes.
I know which sand dune area you’re talking about. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m down there. There are so many uranium deposits and uranium mines in the area it’s very hard to completely avoid it.
What concerns me is that they're going to be moving this radioactive dust which is like coal dust just much more radioactive on a train
@hillgamingofficial the train cars didn’t happen to be there when I was filming. But I’ve seen them a bunch and they are totally sealed for transport. They also spray them down to keep and contamination from leaving the site. In the summer months when it’s hot they spray all the roadways down and all the work sites to keep the dust down.
Man .. I was at those dunes a few yrs ago now I regret reading your post . It's sad to think that our back yard is contaminated, . Looks like I gotta save up to buy a fancy anti cancer box.
@cgonzo801 even if you played in that little sandy area around Arches you’ll be fine. Also unless I see readings from a radiation detector I can only go on rumor. If it was dangerous they (the DOE) would close off the area. Some places are going to be naturally radioactive. Uranium deposits are naturally occurring. Uranium mining doesn’t make an area radioactive. It might bring more of that material to the surface but usually it’s very localized. Plus uranium isn’t that radioactive.
Before marches had roads my family would take jeep up to the arch.
Cavern had stone slabs on the flow and I was told to watch out for rattle snakes.
My dad would resupply in Grand junction..he drove a 49 Mercury and I would sit on a box of dynamite in the back seat in able to see the river.
Also camped at the mines when school was out and would collect dinosaur bones.
Still love the desert and mining history..kudos for the fine work you do! I'm now 78 years old.
Thanks. Glad you enjoy it.
Drew, I really like your content. I appreciate your hard work to keep us informed on places that are important not only for safety reasons but also have significant historical importance. While we can't save everything as a relic of the past may these videos serve as a headstone to the places that are no longer their original form so that people can experience the past while enjoying the future
That’s a great way to think about these videos. It is capturing a moment in time that’s for sure.
This is a fantastically well put together six minutes of video. Wow. It all makes sense now that I learned from your projectionist videos that your background is in cinema. I believe CZcams encourages every installment be a 25 minute novella from everyone but a well curated short video like this is often just right. Looking forward to the next one.
Yeah, not all my videos are long. Sometimes a good story can be told in a short way. Glad you liked the video. Next one might be about a uranium mine that I venture into.
Rad!
Sick!
@@Ganiscol Sick from too many Rads.
I guess having a radioactive campground is one way to ensure people leave after the 14 day limit.
Hahahaha…good point.
Love your concepts and your videography, it’s crazy good
Stellar video as always! Your ability to shoot, fly, and get audio makes your videos so unbelievably consistent with its high quality!
Thanks. It’s easy when your a one person crew. No one to blame when you don’t get the shots needed.
Great video Drew, thank you for your time and effort.
No problem. Glad you enjoyed it.
Glad the DOE decided to clean it up and movie it to Crescent. The railroad made it possible to move the tailings compared to the Mexican Hat Mill and others which were just capped with sand and rocks.
I love your channel I always watch your newest videos and you inspired me to get a geiger counter thank you for telling me about this place your at
That makes me happy. I think more people should have radiation detectors of some kind. We live in a radioactive world and I do believe it helps us understand more about that world.
I'm learning a lot from and enjoy listening to your content. I'm much less paranoid about low level radioactivity than I used to be. Thanks.
I’m so glad to hear that. One of the main points behind me making this content is to better inform the public on radiation. I had a bunch of fears of radiation before I started down this path. But once I learned more and more my fears turned into understanding.
I always get excited when you upload, love your stuff drew!
Thanks. It always awesome to hear people like my videos that much.
Drew hi from Alberta Canada great episode. Was at Arches last year and I wondered what the massive excavation was about. I share your 'anything radioactive" interests keep it up please. Look fwd to your next posting.
Thank you for shedding light on that. I'd seen that and try to find some information on that. And you're the first one that gave this out. Thank you.👍
No problem.
I visited Arches three times in 2021 and Cayonlands once. I drove down into Moab to resupply at the City Market. I wondered what that was on the side of the road. Thanks for making this video! Delicate Arch is my favorite place in Utah! I liked to hike up and see the sunset from the top rim. ❤
The areas around Moab are some of my favorite to explore.
Absolutely love your videos!!!
Thanks. I think it’s awesome so many people enjoy watching them.
I think you well and surely earned my sub, From chilling out next to a spent fuel pool to Projectionist to taking a trip to a lesser known hotspot that is being cleaned up.
I try and keep the channel interesting to watch.
@@RadioactiveDrew I think I found your channel when you covered the radioactive item that gif lost here in Aus, only just noticed yesterday I still wasn’t subbed .
Pretty amazing landscape. The site is huge!
It’s a very big site.
Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses.
Exactly....same as with the banks....
You're exactly right!
Wife and I drove past this site when we visited arches and I was fascinated about what it was! Thanks for the explanation!
No problem. I have been going to Moab for a while now and found out about the site 6 years ago. Glad other people can learn about it.
Super job man🎉
Glad you liked it.
There was also a uranium and vanadium processing mill in Grand Junction CO. Climax mill. Also along the CO River in a sugar mill building that they took over. That area was remediated and is now the site of Las Colonias park.
I want to explore Grand Junction a bit more.
@@RadioactiveDrew I met with a realtor there last month and I think he was telling me that they have a survey done before purchases. Because the mill gave away tailings as it was a nice material for fill, and other uses etc, before it was found to be a bad idea.
If you make it there, side visits to the CO Natl Monument and also the Grand Mesa are interesting.
@Rockhunter329 thanks for the suggestion.
Another beautiful video!
Thanks.
Awesome info!
:D I wish I'd seen this before I visited the area. Fascinating!
Its interesting to check out the area and see the work they are doing. So many people have no idea this area exists.
What would make an interesting video is about Fukushima, the water they stored there. How they treated it to remove the heavy elements, and what remained and why its safe to dump back into the ocean. Because there's a lot of fearmongering going around Japan releasing the treated water back into the ocean.
I also remember years ago just after the meltdown people posting videos of taking readings of around California and basically being natural background radiation, but was saying it was Fukushima fallout.
Believe me, it very high on my list of videos to make. I’m actually in the perfect place to start with a video about that whole situation…right next to the Columbia River. Once I’m done with all this Oppenheimer 70mm film business I’ll be working on that video. Might even go to Japan.
@@RadioactiveDrew yeah, with the latest news the past few days on news media channels putting radiation into the video title and has many people in a uproar, and quite a few spreading misinformation due to ignorance of the subject, and the news media is feeding into that ignorance, it's maddening.
Just look up how much Radiation the nuclear La hauge "recycling plant" in france releases every year in to the Ocean. Then the tritium water from Fukushima is like nothing.
One of the truly admirable things about the USA is the superfund cleanup system. Sure! Sure! Its awfully goddamn expensive, but it does demonstrate a true commitment by the US to clean up after its past excesses. You certainly wouldn't get this in the ex-Soviet bloc.
Until they eff up and flood the toxic contents into the river like what happened to the Animas River in 2015. Superfund failure. Gold King Mine.
@RangerMcFriendly talk about a totally pooch screw, that flooding a river with a massive tailings pond is up there.
@ElRel yeah, when it works correctly and doesn’t do heavy handed stuff like destroying an entire town because they use to mine and process uranium there…I’m talking about Uravan btw.
I've made the trip moab many times over the last 20 years. That site has changed a lot in that time
For sure. They are doing a lot of work there.
Thanks for the video, I worked on another uranium processing plant in the late 70's, it was west of there in Ticaboo . I never did glow in the dark , but . . .
I remember when that site started and the large pile that was there. I think originally it was suppose to be a ten year project.
Great video...👍
Thanks.
Interesting as always
It is possible that an voltage is being induced into the fence from the high tension lines overhead due to the alternating fields. It looks like the fence and lines run parallel for a significant distance, but like you stated it would be bled off into the ground. Interesting side note is that at the power plant I worked at all the chain link fence had grounds strapped to some of the posts.
As long as the high voltage power lines, I’m going to guess 220 kV, are 25 feet or higher from the physical ground there won’t be any inductance to the fence and then direct to ground via the fence posts. The grounds on fence posts was to ensure a short circuit to ground if an energized conductor touched a fence. At our substations every fence post all the way around the perimeter had a large ribbon ground which was attached to the mesh copper grounding
It is a literal electric fence similar to a cattle pasture fence. The tailing pile is a bit more radioactive than fiestaware at contact. Won't be enough to hurt you to visit but wouldn't want a house built on it.
if a wire falls on fence, it would be electric lol. Great video!
Oh hey, I've been in there to fix a printer for the UP railroad in the shack where they scan the truck drivers.
One thing that's always fascinated me about mining processes is they get exponentially better over time. That alaska gold mining show, in a lot of circumstances those placer claims those guys were mining was material that had been placer mined decades before, and better technology and better equipment allowed them to recover more gold and still turn a profit. I really wonder, if they managed to get 90% of the uranium out, how much by weight still remains? Rather than packing it all up in railcars and moving it, it's worth wondering if it would be more valuable to reprocess the ore again to remove everything radioactive from it, and leave the dirt where it is. Based on the counts you were seeing, it's probably only exciting as the material was concentrated by human activity, if it had been as a result of hydrothermal activity the gov wouldn't care.
I always love a bit of errata on weird stuff happening out in the hinterboons.
Interesting information.
Thanks.
I was just on ur channel watching old videos then this appeared 🎉
I love moab
Amazing that I was there with my dad about 12 years ago and they are still working on that.
The Project is currently estimated to be completed in the 2030s.
Yeah it’s a pretty slow process and it’s a lot of material.
Never realized I have driven by that site many times while driving through Moab or driving to the put-in for Cataract Canyon.
Hey Drew, love your channel!! Just wondering, have you ever been by the Marysville Utah mining district? I mean, since you are around here in Utah and all. Not sure if all the mines are closed up, but when I was a kid, there were so many uranium mines just wide open, waiting for the curious adventurers. My best buddy’s dad was the boss at the biggest mine there, before they closed them all up. Anyway, just a suggestion. May be a bust, or maybe not. Thanks for your work, love the content!
The mill tailings are being removed in case of the possibility of catastrophic flooding due to the possible collapse of Dillon Dam in Summit County. Dillon Dam is unstable.
If you drive by the dam in the winter while on I-70 look up at the left side of the dam and you will see an inverted crescent or horseshoe shape that will be snowless while the rest of the dam is covered with snow. The crescent is the area that is moving causing friction which melts the snow . If it were to collapse the flood would carry the tailings down stream all at once contaminating downstream lakes , irrigation ditches ,agriculture areas, canals, etc..
It really wouldn’t matter if that area flooded in regards to the tailings. Like I said there are plenty of natural deposits of uranium that the river runs through that put far more contamination than the tailings do or can do.
The main reason they are removing it is so they can use that land for something else.
Desert Bighorn sheep lived on this tailing pile for many years. Drank the water , ate the grasses.
Pretty sure they’re fine.
@@RadioactiveDrew Fine? Hell they have been there since 1945.
I like your objective approach to this content. Make any content you want whenever you get sick of a topic. Cook channel
I’m glad I have your support. I really like doing science and filmmaking stuff. So I could see the focus of this channel being that for a while. I did just get a Traeger as a gift and have been cooking on that…so maybe some cooking shots might make their way into some videos.
I remember staying at the Atomic Motel in the 80s. It's now Kokopelli Lodge. Everything was named after the uranium mining for a time. Idk how much of that is still visible. Uranium frenzy came out in 2002.
There’s still some leftover stuff like that in Moab. There’s still the Uranium Building on Main Street. I know there are some roads in town that reference mining in some fashion. The uranium boom was crazy. It was a government subsidized gold rush.
@@RadioactiveDrewAs uranium prices continue to rise, the La Sal district south of Moab will resume production. One of my buddies is working at the Pinyon Plain mine in Arizona; they're in all-out development targeting a high-grade uranium orebody in a breccia pipe. The Joe Dandy mines around Naturita are also viable, and the Sunday and Whirlwind complexes have resumed preproduction activity.
@Porty1119 there are a couple of uranium mines ready to go in the Lisbon Valley. Breccia pipe formations seem really interesting.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, EF calls those their La Sal Complex - several of them are interconnected. One of the guys who worked down here in 2019-2020 is from Moab and worked there for a while too. We like to purchase underground equipment from the Moab guys; they've got a lot of it that sits when the mines aren't running.
The breccia pipes are indeed interesting. Their grades tend to be two to four times higher than the Moab-area mines, but depth and geometry makes them more capital-intensive to develop. Can't just poke a short decline into a canyon wall when the orebody is 1400' down.
@Porty1119 I’ve heard the way to get at those breccia pipes is using water to dissolve the uranium and pump it back to the surface.
One of the main reasons for moving the tailings to Crescent Junction, about thirty miles from the Colorado River, is the likelihood of the River changing its course in the next thousands of years, as this is what rivers do over time (or a major flood at any time), which could wash all those radioactive tailings down south through Nevada, Arizona, and California. That thought convinced many congressmen in those states, who never want to spend money on anything, to approve the billions it is costing to move the pile. I have never heard of the idea of it being prime real estate, since people would still be leery of living on top of what’s left (“did they get it all?”) One idea is a big parking lot for nearby Arches Ntl Park, from which busses would take people into the park. Another is just a big green park area to walk around in, but not for too long. We still have a few years to plan, while they cart away the rest of the stuff up to Crescent Jct. There was no big movement there against the plan, nobody lives there, there’s just a cafe and a horribly overpriced gas station.
I’m sure they aren’t think of the next thousand years. Everything else, yes I can see them turning it into a parking lot, a park or camping.
i love how you say the electric fence sign is fake (i do agree) and still avoid touching it lol
Good Video
Thanks.
It's literally right out of town. Hahaha.
I was there a few months ago, but when I saw it I thought it was a new development or something. Lol
Might be a new development once they get it all cleaned up.
As a professional scrap collector, thank you for fact about that electric fence. I have to excuse you now, as I need to buy tickets to that location
I wouldn't advise hopping that fence...the DOE isn't as friendly when you are someplace you aren't suppose to be.
Wow! what a beautiful area! It beats NYC. Love it! Love those "HOT" areas! Super Awesome!
Glad you like seeing these places.
driven by that a hundred times... there is a spring right up that canyon behind you, the city has posted signs and recommended to not drink because of the radiation. Signs are gone, and I drink it all the time. I'd love to see that water tested.
I’ll have to look for that spring next time I’m there.
Yeah, I was wondering about the workers too. I bet you could hang around the local bar and interview them.
That would be pretty cool. I think I might be able to get permission to go on the site and do a video about the entire process.
Cool.
The tailings pile use to be at the same level you were standing at when you made the video. It was huge. I use to go by there everyday. You should go there after it rains. The detectable levels go way up.
I was there after it rained and filmed a little after it snowed. Levels seemed pretty much the same.
Hi Drew, great video. Speaking of old mines, have you ever been up to the Day Break Uranium mine North East of Spokane? I dont know much about it, but was wondering if you hadl ever been there? And if that material went to the Hanford site? Thanks for a great channel man😎
I haven’t checked out that mining area yet. I would like to because a couple other people have brought it up. It’s very possible that uranium went to Hanford. I don’t think they were very picky where they got it from when it was full blown weapons manufacturing.
@@RadioactiveDrew right on man.
What the heck is Autunite???
It s a mineral usually found in uranium deposits that’s made up of uranium and some other elements that fluoresce under UV light.
Go south to Blanding and see the site they remediated in the 90's
Once again, you're killing it. What are you using to shoot with? Are you shooting 8K and then exporting to 4K? Amazingly crisp and clear shots. Amazing color on this vid and the past videos like Opp part I , part II and white pocket. Another great vid Drew. I hope you get to produce shorts and professional level docs. You da man
One note, the audio for first 2min was great. Then about 2:06 you changed a mic or re-positioned it perhaps? then again another audio change at 2:20 . The first 2 min seems better to me. 😀
@dan_in_sd yeah, mic placement was pretty good for those first couple minutes. Then the wind shifted my mic a bit. Then the second part was from another day with a different mic.
Totally missed the first comment. I’m shooting everything on a Sony A7S3 and a DJI Air 2S drone. I edit everything on DaVinci Resolve. Everything is shot in 4k and the upload is in 4k as well.
@@RadioactiveDrew Very well. Thanks for the info. Whatever your doin'...... keep doing it. ;)
Always wondered what that was. We always camp a few miles down the road by the boat ramp between this radiation and the potash ponds.
i grew up in moab , the sand hill they are talking about was not radioactive, the state road used it to sand the roads in the winter .My grandfather and 3 of my uncles worked at the mill .
If that sand was radioactive I don’t think they would let people stop and play in it.
Now you've gone and done it drew I want that radioactive sign dammit lol.
🤩 in salt lake we call this daybreak ❤
I always forget my Geiger counter and binoculars when i go camping
hi macimages, have you become a flat earther yet?
@@flat-earther it isn’t flat?!?!
@@macimages4215 yeah I agree in a way because land is usually not flat but empirical curvature experiments done over water and frozen lakes show no curvature.
Класс, обожаю такие локации. Спасибо, бро!
A very interesting description of the contamination level over there and its harmful to people. Great work, Drew!
Hey Drew, wish you were here on the East Coast with me I’ve got problems brewing in Plymouth Massachusetts with the Pilgrim nuclear power plant. I wish we could go sniffing around with your dosimeter. Anyways thanks for the videos God bless you and your family be safe.
What kind of problems?
Idea: site for a Radioactive-Man Festival. 💫
But how do we make the faceless man glow green?
Neat!
Cool man! Anywhere near salt lake to check out?! I will be out at dugway geode beds next week and take my Geiger counter with me.
Nothing that I can think of. If you head south towards Moab, plenty of uranium mines out there. You could always check out a local antique shop. More than likely they will have something radioactive in there.
@@RadioactiveDrew thanks! So far mineral museums have been the best! Plus I’m into geology so I just love to go anyway.
Very interesting hobby, i am curious what triggered your interest in radiation? I would love if you had the opportunity to test the Better Geiger on these trips, would love to have an instrument and the radiacode is very expensive in Canada but the BG seems a bit more affordable. Love the videos ,very interesting, you are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful area especially for your passion hunting radioactive materials.
I've always been interested in radiation. But once I found out you could buy a small Geiger counter on Amazon and find radioactive items all around, I started my journey. The push came from watching a video on CZcams about someone else's collection. The Better Geiger is a great little detector. But I really like the functionality of the Radiacode and I enjoy using the Radeye B20 a lot.
@@RadioactiveDrew Thank you
It’s electrified to keep animals out
Never touch a metal fence especially minimal ones that seem easy to just leap over etc.
Look for boxes cameras and other stuff. Secure areas will bury them somewhere close as they need to be repeated due to termination points. One method around this is to string two lines. You need to bridge the gap to active it. Vs just touching one.
But it’s bare wire. You are water and metal 😂🙏
it's possible there is current in the wires from AC transmission lines.. using an IR camera would show it, as they weould be warmer than they should be..
Well they didn’t feel warmer to the touch.
Now, how and when will the DOE clean up Crescent Junction? I live 5 miles downwind from the "cells" in Thompson. I am now a downwinder.
The wind won’t carry that material offsite because it is being buried as soon as it’s taken out of the carts.
Hey brother, random question, your video looks great, care if i ask what color profile you film in on your Sony? Slog3 or something else? Thanks
Yep, Slog3 S-gamma 3 Cine. I do everything in DaVinci Resolve.
@@RadioactiveDrew You do a great job with the grading mate. Do you have a lut that you like? Thanks again.
@HarryDaltonGS thanks. I don’t use LUTs from other companies or people. I usually shoot some test charts when I’m at a location and use a color space transform along with hue vs hue and hue vs color to dial in the colors on the vectors cope. Then some light grading with curves, saturation and color wheels. Gerald Undone has a couple of great videos on how to do all this.
Radioactive camping yeah! What about Cobalt 60.
Drew... my comment has nothing to do with this particular video... But.. after watching your video on materials contamination, and several Chernobyl videos, I started to ask myself why the disposed vehicles and equipment could not have been washed and "wiped" of radioactive contaminants once radioactivity decayed? Thanks!
Some materials are harder to decontaminate from. Usually uranium mill tailings can be washed off of machinery. It also depends on how long that machinery has sat in that contaminated material. There can be a degree of penetration into paint and metals. There is some equipment at Chernobyl that is still contaminated because some of that cleanup might have been with uranium fuel elements or something that emits a high amount of neutron radiation. Neutron radiation can make other non-radioactive items radioactive. Neutron radiation isn't common in the majority of radioactive isotopes. But in a nuclear reactor there is a high intensity of neutrons as that's what keeps the fission reaction going.
Questions: while in Colorado measuring radiation levels, what was your take on Rocky Flats? And, do uranium tailings still offgas helium?
I’ve been to Rocky Flats and walked the northern perimeter fence with my detector. I didn’t see hot pots and the radiation level seemed normal for the area. I want to go back and do some more investigating on the site. I would imagine the site that is off limits in the middle is still contaminated.
Anything that emits alpha radiation makes helium. The alpha radiation is helium with a positive charge. It quickly picks up 2 electrons after its emitted. All helium on earth comes from radioactive decay.
ive been wondering what all the traincars i have seen with the radioactive placards were about. i know its common in utah but ive driven through there a bunch of times in my Semi and the length of the consist always made me curious.
There are a couple sites used to store low level radioactive waste in Utah.
4:12: "Your honour, ladies & gentlemen of the jury, this court has no cause to convict me of trespassing right past those signs, since from general knowledge of ordinary-level high school physics, it was obvious the electrified fence sign was a lie - and if that sign was an obvious lie, then I had no reason to believe the other government signs right next to it weren't also lies. My affirmative defence is that one of those signs not being believable, none of these signs were believable as being anything other than an obviously false scare tactic. I just exercised my freedom of movement while ignoring obvious lies, as false as any false advertising."
I would love to see how that plays out.
@@RadioactiveDrew So would I. Just not as the actual defendant. But if anyone tries this, and I'm not saying you should, but if you do, please let us know.
You have a great name. 👍
Thanks.
So how deep are they going? Taking the top 6 feet of soil or are they focusing on certain areas measurings the rad. as they go?
I’m sure they are taking radiation measurements as they remove material. I would imagine they would have a limit to go down before they would backfill the area to cut down the exposure…if they couldn’t remove it completely.
Just stop by the nearest bar around quitting time and you’ll get full access interviews and then some .. lo😂
Good idea.
The two big plumes of cancers and toxic wastes “or radioactive in souther Utah” are down by Saint George and hill afb and surrounding areas.
Good grief! I was just there in April. Drove right past this site, like 3 or 4 times! So this means I’m all covered in radiation?! That sucks! Am I going to get cancer or something now? Great! Just great.
You’re fine. I should have explained a little more how someone could become contaminated. If you hoped the fence of that site, went down to the piles of dirt they are working on and rolled around in it you would be contaminated. But if you changed your clothes and took a shower you would be decontaminated. Exposure to radiation doesn’t make you radioactive. Having something that is radioactive on you or in you can make you radioactive for a little bit.
Just think, soon it can be an excellent location for those dirt poor, starving home land developers
The city said they want to turn it into a park. Just have to see if that’s what happens.
Was the Atlas mine related to the Atlas Hazel ware?
I don't think so.
@@RadioactiveDrew Thanks! I did have some Hazel Atlas ware I got rid if it after I found out it was radioactive
Could you see if the workers were wearing any protective gear? Do you think they work in shifts so they’re not exposed too much or is it really that dangerous where they are working? I wonder if they even know everything about what they’re working on.
I don’t think they are wearing suits. I usually don’t see people walking around on the tailings piles. Also there isn’t a suit that will protect you from radiation. The suits are usually worn to make it easier to decontaminate yourself after being in a contaminated environment. Everyone there knows exactly the type of environment they are working in. They will also be fitted with personal dosimeters that they will wear for the whole shift. If they cross a radiation exposure threshold then they rotate out. I want to say that nuclear workers have a federal limit of 5000 mrem of exposure in a year that they can take before getting pulled.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you for your response. That definitely helps me understand more.
I worked on the Monticello UT mill about 50 miles south of Moab. clean up protective gear consisted of hard hat, safety glasses, thin gloves and booties to cover the steel toe boots we are required to wear. Remember the tailings have had most of the radioactive material removed. The biggest concern was Radon gas.
@dougbrown8331 the tailings doesn’t have most of the radioactive material removed. It has some of the most radioactive material in it. Uranium is what they’re extracting and what’s left over is a bunch of other radioactive elements like radium. Radium is a million times more radioactive than uranium.
3:23 You can see drivers driving past the site like bats out of hell 🦇 to minimize exposure to the radiation.
That's just how people drive around there.
That place vs bridgeton missouri contamination how would it compare?
No surprise its on the Colorado. People love building places that generate or store radiation next to water. In a pinch... and away it goes
It’s more that water is used heavily in the processing of ore.
Go down near ajo, az. Another uranium mine
Thanks for the suggestion.
0:55 Where I'm currently sitting, the background radiation is usually between 0.14-0.17 micro sieverts. Currently, my Geiger counter is reading 0.16 micro sieverts.
That sounds about right.
This reclamation has been going n for a long time. I really hope they can get all of the mill tailings disposed of properly, especially since it's super close to the Colorado river.
I’m sure they can get all of the mill tailings out of there. I’m curious as to how far down the contamination goes since uranium and radium are water soluble. Once it hits a clay layer I would imagine that would slow it down a bit.
@@RadioactiveDrew same here. Every time I pass through or stay in Moab I always ask the locals for updates. Seems to be going well, hope it continues to do so!
@erikdenwalt4801 I’ve visited the site for a couple years now and they have made a lot of progress.
Will you ever try to go to the oak ridge lab and examine/show us some super spicy stuff?
I would love to go there. Hopefully in the future I can work something out with them.
@@RadioactiveDrew you should try to show off a piece of Pu in a video sometime. That would be super cool.
I remember the area before the remediation happened
I would have loved to explore that place before it got torn down.
@@RadioactiveDrew This was before the big rock pile at I-70 was made but long after they tore down the plant.
I wonder about the workers who spend every day out there cleaning up the site. Their exposure over time must be pretty high.
I would imagine it would be on the same level as a uranium miner. But it also might be a little higher only because of the elevated level of radium in the tailings.
I worked at that site in 2007 and other hazmat sites all over U.S. . They monitor personal radiation with film badges and other detection devices when leaving hot zone .They also make you wear protection, tyvek suit , booties, gloves. This protection is thrown away every time you exit hot zone. You also have to take RAD WORKER 2 course which is an 40 hr course . They had a lot of oversite on that site that watched pretty much your every move . The people that knew the most about radiation said as healthy adults we were not in much danger with our safeguards in place . Water trucks and dust control was very important and visible dust would stop work. They were very strict on booties too saying going home with dust on cloths and shoes endangered your children. You stay very clean on a RAD job.
Youre breathing that in. Gone with the wind...
Nothing is being breathed in.