| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Warm Sands: Uranium Mill Tailings Policy in the Atomic West. By Eric W. Mogren. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. x + 241 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.)

Eric Mogren's book, Warm Sands, chronicles governmental policy decision-making regarding uranium mill tailings during the Cold War. These policy decisions, especially those of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), not only unduly exposed communities to radiation hazards, but eventually necessitated the reclamation of mill tailings sites, costing billions of taxpayer dollars. 1

Mogren documents the little known fact that the U. S. built a number of uranium mills and radium refineries to supply radium for both military and medical uses in the early part of the twentieth century. He then provides an excellent, extensive history of the uranium boom, which began in the late 1940s in the western United States and was sponsored by the federal government. Among the problems that he focuses on are water and air pollution resulting from mill tailings. Of particular interest are Mogren's in-depth analyses of community exposures from the varied uses of mill tailings, such as backfill in building projects. He then reviews the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) legislation developed by Congress in the late 1970s to address the massive problems of mill tailings reclamation. . . .

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