Spook Uranium Disposal Cell, Wyoming

The Spook Uranium Disposal Cell, in the Powder River Basin, is another uranium mine closure site, but a bit different than most. The cell was built to contain the wastes from a uranium processing mill that operated here from 1962 to 1965. Instead of making a mound and capping it with coarse-crushed rock to protect the mound from erosion, which is typical, the 315,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil and debris from the mill was placed in the bottom of an adjacent open pit uranium mine, which was then filled with material to the pre-mining surface contour. The visual effects of mining were removed, even if the invisible effects may persist for millennia.

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