There’s no legal problem here, officials with the U.S. Department of Energy say. Storing mercury at a federal site south of Whitewater won’t violate the terms of an agreement the DOE signed with Mesa County more than a decade ago, a top official with the agency said.

Well, that’s a relief, at least to federal officials eager to find a permanent disposal site for thousands of tons of mercury. But it’s not very reassuring to Mesa County residents who believed they had a commitment from the DOE years ago to keep the site near Whitewater free of additional hazardous wastes.

That desert disposal site, originally known as Cheney Reservoir, was created to store millions of tons of low-level radioactive waste in the form of mill tailings from uranium milling that occurred in Grand Junction in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

Many people locally were angry when they learned this summer that the Mesa County location was included on a list of seven potential sites around the country to store up to 14,000 tons of mercury.

Several politicians, including 3rd District Congressman John Salazar and Gov. Bill Ritter have written to the DOE, urging the agency to drop the Mesa County site from further consideration.

State Sen. Josh Penry specifically cited previous DOE commitments to this community in a letter to the agency objecting to the possible mercury storage in this county.

In response, Penry received a letter last week from Ines R. Tray, an assistant secretary with the DOE, saying the mercury storage wouldn’t violate a 1996 agreement with the county because it doesn’t involve adding radioactive waste to the Cheney site. The letter also said mercury storage wouldn’t conflict with operation of the disposal site because “the mercury storage facility would be a completely separate operation.”

Right.

Penry said the letter from the DOE is an indication that Colorado’s congressional delegation needs to step up its efforts to get the Obama administration to eliminate the Mesa County site from further consideration.

We wholeheartedly agree. Not only would the mercury be a health and environmental hazard, but it’s clear from the Energy Department’s reasoning on the mercury storage that there would be nothing to prevent storage of all manner of hazardous materials on the site in the future.