Mill Tailings and the man who cleaned up Grand Junction

One of many western myths, has a lone man of action and integrity standing tall to clean up the town. This is one such story, but the hero is not a white-hat wearing lawman with a quick draw. This man wielded a stethoscope and was a local pediatrician.

Dr. Robert Ross, was a past president of the Mesa County Medical Association. He was civically active. He was a respected member of the community practicing medicine out of the “white house under the elms on Seventh St.”

By the late 1960s, scientist and people were becoming aware of the dangers associated with uranium mining and milling. In Grand Junction, the Climax uranium and vanadium mill allowed citizens and contractors to take the sand like mill-tailings for back fill, sand for concrete and for landscaping. Grand Junction had boomed right along side the Uranium mining boom of the 1940-1960s, and mill-tailings were used in much of this new growth. Upwards of 4000 structures were contaminated and leaking large amounts of radon.

Many in Grand Junction were skeptical, “Uranium turned this from a sleepy little cow town to a booming city. They accept it as part of their existence. That’s why you don’t see a lot of immediate concern about the tailings,” said Paul Hathaway of the Daily Sentinel, in a 1971 Time Magazine story entitled “Hot Town.”

But Dr. Robert Ross was not a skeptic, and as a pediatrician had a first-hand view in the rise of birth defects and childhood cancers. In 1970, Ross reached out to, Dr. C. Henry Kempe, chairman of the pediatrics department at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver. They began ringing the alarm. They faced resistance from the Atomic Energy Commission, but the Colorado State Health Department and Colorado Governor Love, found funding for Dr Ross and Dr Kempe, to begin a study of birth defects and childhood cancers in Grand Junction.

By October of 1971, preliminary results of their study were truly frightening for Mesa County:

50% higher rate of birth defects then state averages.

50% higher mortality rate due to congenital abnormalities then state averages.

Children born with cleft pallets occurred at almost twice the state average.

15-year trend of increasing rates of cancer mortality while the rest of the state remained steady.

It took some time. The Sentinel tried to discredit the findings, but finally during the 1980s and 90’s, $1.5 billion was spent by the state and federal governments to clean up the radioactive mess. The waste is now buried at the Cheney Cell, a radioactive waste dump 18 miles south of Grand Junction. But, many houses were never remediated, and to this day, before breaking ground on any new construction, the site has to be inspected for radioactive waste. The clean up is ongoing.

Ross’s actions gained national attention, him and Kempe presented their findings to congress. Dr. Ross, stood up, took action, and did what was right. His questions and concern cleaned up this town, and we thank him.