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Bowman Ashing Facility
Location: The Bowman facility site is located about seven miles west of the town of Bowman in Bowman County, North Dakota
Background: Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc., built the facility in late 1963 to convert uraniferous lignite (the raw ore) into a more economically handled form. The plant, operated from March 1964 to February 1967, burned lignite in three natural-gas fired, rotary kilns at a site near the mines to decrease the freight haulage costs. The burning process decomposed and drove off the organic constituents and carbon. The ore’s uranium and molybdenum values were upgraded about two times in the residual ash, which was then shipped by rail for final processing at the company’s Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico, mill. The kilns were 120 feet long by 7 feet in diameter and processed 80-90 tons of lignite ore per day. The raw lignite ore averaged 0.43 percent U3O8. Uranium recovery in the ash product averaged 88 percent. The Bowman plant site covered about 12 acres. At the facility site, radioactively contamination materials were found to locally extend to three feet below the surface. No clearly delineated process-residue pile or a waste pond exists at the site. An area of 59 acres has been contaminated by low amounts of wind-blown ash residues, apparently released during plant operations. It is estimated that about 100,000 cubic yards of low grade contaminated material are present at the site. The Bowman site is owned by private interests.
Background: Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc., built the facility in late 1963 to convert uraniferous lignite (the raw ore) into a more economically handled form. The plant, operated from March 1964 to February 1967, burned lignite in three natural-gas fired, rotary kilns at a site near the mines to decrease the freight haulage costs. The burning process decomposed and drove off the organic constituents and carbon. The ore’s uranium and molybdenum values were upgraded about two times in the residual ash, which was then shipped by rail for final processing at the company’s Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico, mill. The kilns were 120 feet long by 7 feet in diameter and processed 80-90 tons of lignite ore per day. The raw lignite ore averaged 0.43 percent U3O8. Uranium recovery in the ash product averaged 88 percent. The Bowman plant site covered about 12 acres. At the facility site, radioactively contamination materials were found to locally extend to three feet below the surface. No clearly delineated process-residue pile or a waste pond exists at the site. An area of 59 acres has been contaminated by low amounts of wind-blown ash residues, apparently released during plant operations. It is estimated that about 100,000 cubic yards of low grade contaminated material are present at the site. The Bowman site is owned by private interests.
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