The Moab mill was constructed in 1956 by Uranium Reduction Company and operated until 1962, when its assets were sold to Atlas Minerals Corporation. Uranium concentrate produced at the mill was sold to the U.S. Atomic Commission through December 1970, and during its years of operation the mill processed an average of approximately 1,400 tons of ore per day. When operations ceased in 1984, an unlined impoundment in the western portion of the millsite contained about 16 million tons of uranium mill tailings and other contaminated materials, and operations had contributed to contamination of ground water at the site. After Atlas declared bankruptcy in 1998 and relinquished its license, responsibility for the Moab millsite was transferred to the U.S. Department of Energy in 2001 through congressional legislation. The property borders the west bank of the Colorado River and became the present-day Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project site, encompassing about 480 acres, including a 130-acre tailings pile. The project relocates mill tailings and other contaminated materials from the Moab site and nearby vicinity properties to an engineered disposal cell near Crescent Junction, Utah, and also includes active remediation of ground water at Moab through an interim action system with more than 40 extraction and freshwater injection wells designed to protect surface water and recover ammonia, uranium, and other contaminants before discharge to the Colorado River. In April 2009, removal of the tailings began, with material excavated, dried to optimal moisture content, placed in steel containers with locking lids, and shipped by rail to Crescent Junction; debris from former mill buildings has also been excavated, sorted, and sized for shipment. The project ships one train a day, four days a week, carrying up to 136 containers and about 4,800 tons per trainload, and in early 2016 it anticipated reaching the halfway point in relocating 8 million tons of tailings for disposal.