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Show AAourrfcoin Westf unemployment has been up 56, says report (Special to Vernal Express) By Helene C. Monberg, Vernal Express Washington Correspondent Washington Unemployment increased increas-ed 56 percent in the Rocky Mountain West in the 16-month period from July 1981 to November 1982, ranging from a 97 percent increase in Wyoming to a 27 percent increase in New Mexico, according accor-ding to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Labor Department. Unemployment in the Mountain West is now approaching that of the nation as a whole, according to Dan Buck of the staff of Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., who dug out the figures. While unemployment for the nation as a whole went up about 50 percent in that 16-month period, it went up 56 percent in the eight Mountain states, with major increases in-creases in Wyoming at 97 percent, Colorado Col-orado at 75 percent, Nevada at 69 percent and Arizona at 65 percent. The increases for the other Mountain states were: Idaho 27 percent, Montana 45 percent, New Mexico 27 percent and Utah 38 percent. July 1981 is considered to be the beginning begin-ning of the current recession. National-. National-. ly, for the last reporting period, the rate of unemployment stood at 10.8 percent; Nevada and Arizona have about the same. Rep. Ray Kogovsek, D. Colo., has suggested sug-gested a new approach to unemployment: unemploy-ment: cleaning up our own backyards, particularly those areas designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for clean-up of hazardous waste sites under the superfund legislation passed by Congress in 1980. As the sites have already been designated there are 65 in the Western half of the country and as funding for the clean-up has already been designated under the superfund program, with $1.6 billion allocated to start clean-up in 1985, why not move the schedule ahead, Kogovsek suggested here on Jan. 28. In the Four Corners areas states there are 17 sites alone and seem hazardous to public health which could be cleaned up now, he said. Furthermore, Kogovsek said, many of the hazardous waste sites in these sites are in mining areas, where unemployment unemploy-ment is running rampant because of mine lay-offs. They are particularly high ' in Arizona and Colorado. Unemployment is running 40 percent in Lake County, Colo., where Rep. Ken Kramer, R-Colo., and a group of EPA officials recently visited a waste site on the EPA hazardous hazar-dous waste list at California Gulch. No state in the West needs clean-up of its hazardous site more than Arizona, according ac-cording to EPA experts, because the state lives largely on ground water, and the majority of the six sites listed either have already or have the potential for infecting in-fecting ground water supplies, according to an EPA long of the sites made available to this correspondent recently. The Arizona sites are located at Scott-sdale, Scott-sdale, Kingman, Goodyear, Glove, Tuscon and Phoenix. The most interesting site on the hazardous hazar-dous waste list is at Globe, where a residential development was built over old mine tailings around the defunct Metate Asbestos Co. mill and directly adjacent ad-jacent to the active Jaquays Mining & Equipment corp. asbestos mill, across State Route 70 from the old mill. The area is underlain with graded chrysoltile asbestos tailings and fibers and the U.S. Public Health Service has decreed chrystotile asbestos is f ibrogenic and carcinogenic, ie., contains cancer-causing cancer-causing agents. The homes were decontaminated decon-taminated in 1980 after Gov. Bruce Babbitt, Bab-bitt, D-Ariz., temporarily relocated the residents of the housing development. However, "wind, water and human activity ac-tivity have since eroded the 6-inch soil covering, again exposing the asbestos tailings," EPA states. "This is the top-priority top-priority site in Arizona" for clean-up under the superfund program, EPA concluded. In Colorado the hazardous waste sites are in or near Leadville, Idaho Springs, Denver, Boulder and two at Commerce City. Three of the sites are mineral- related. For example, the EPA says about the California Gulch site that Kramer inspected, "It has been seriously serious-ly impacted by lead, silver, zinc, copper and gold mining activities. Numerous abandoned mines and mine tailing piles are located in the gulch. The most serious water quality problem is acid mine drainage from the Yak Tunnel, a 3-4-mile tunnel constructed from 1895-1909 for the purpose of exploration, transportation of ore and mine drainage. The tunnel is connected to 17 mines. The flow has high concentrations of dissolve metals, including iron, lead, zinc, manganese and cadmium. California Gulch drains into the Arkansas River. "There is concern about the potential for contamination of domestic groundwater ground-water supplies in the California Gulch area, the adverse impact on fish in the Arkansas River, and potential adverse impacts on livestock and crops grown on . agricultural land irrigated using water from the Arkansas River," EPA said. The top problem area in the state, however, is the Marshall Landfill in Boulder County, which has contaminated groundwater beneath the site. Although it was closed in 1973, EPA said contaminants con-taminants at the site include phenol, methylene chloride, trichlorathylene, and diethyl phthalate, all bad news to wells in the area. In New Mexico the hazardous waste sites are located at Clovis, Milan, Albuquerque Albu-querque and Churchrock in Indian County. Two sites are from mineral activity, one from railroad repair and refueling activities (at Clovis), and one from unknown sources (at Albuquerque). Waste from the uranium mill near Milan has contaminated the aquifer and "water is unsafe for drinking and cooking' ' in the area, according to EPA. In Utah the lone site is at the Rose , Park Sludge pit at Salt Lake City, contaminated con-taminated by petroleum wastes, and now closed. Utah has put it on the top list for clean-up under the superfund program. |