If water officials have their way, this will finally be the year that federal officials decide to move a 12 million-ton pile of radioactive goo, a nuclear pile they say threatens Southern California's water supply, away from the banks of the Colorado River.

But with a summertime deadline for a decision drawing near, federal officials who will decide the pile's fate have refused to endorse the idea of moving it.

Federal and state groups, politicians, environmental groups and water agencies from several states have been saying for years that the pile —— located near Moab, Utah —— must be moved to protect the Colorado River's water supply.

During a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, officials from Southern California's main water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District, said the pile is hazardous and needs to be moved.

"You can't consider our water supply safe if those are in our headwaters," said Dennis Underwood, Metropolitan's vice president for Colorado River resources. "It's public health that's endangered here."

During the briefing convened by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, a council member from the county where the pile is located said the need to act is urgent.

"It's not a question of if there's going to be a catastrophic flood, it's a question of when it's going to happen," said Joette Langianese of Grand County, Utah.

The radioactive pile is left over from a uranium and heavy-metal mine that operated at the site for 28 years, closing in 1984.

Filled with highly radioactive heavy metals such as uranium, radium and radon, and poisonous chemicals such as ammonia and sulfuric acid salts, the 130-acre, 94-foot-tall heap sits just 750 feet from the Colorado River.

Water officials said the pile isn't an immediate threat to local drinking water, even though it's been leaking millions of gallons of poisons into the river annually for years, because the river's massive volume dilutes the contaminants down to harmless levels.

But officials said the pile is a looming disaster because a storm, flood or earthquake could dump it into the river.

"A huge storm or flood on the river … could lead to a disaster where you wash (the pile) into the river," said Jeff Kightlinger, an attorney for Metropolitan, San Diego County's main water agency. "That could make it unusable."

Despite the potential for problems, U.S. Department of Energy officials have so far refused to commit to removing the pile.

Instead, department officials say they're also studying the idea of covering the pile with a liner or burying it.

"Moving it, burying it, covering it up —— all kinds of options are on the table," Energy Department spokesman Joseph Davis said last week. "But we haven't chosen a preferred option."

The Energy Department, which has been studying the Moab pile for five years, is expected to recommend how to deal with its cleanup this summer, when it completes an environmental review.

Water officials, meanwhile, say the only safe plan is to remove the pile.

Any action short of removing the monstrous mound of contaminants, they say, threatens the river, which is a principal water source for millions of people downstream in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.

San Diego County residents get 36 percent of all their water from the Colorado. Poisoning that supply with substances that could remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of years could create havoc with the county's supply.

"You could have catastrophic consequences; we don't even know (how bad) the consequences would be," said Gordon Hess, the Water Authority's director of imported water. "We've been on record for six years wanting that pile moved."

Water experts: Move it

Because of the importance of the Colorado River's water supply, Metropolitan and Water Authority officials say the only safe thing to do is to move the Moab pile away from the river.

Scads of other agencies and individuals —— including the Environmental Protection Agency, state and federal politicians, and environmental groups in several states —— have said they agree.

But the Department of Energy has refused to endorse the idea as it moves closer to its decision deadline this summer.

Instead, the department is studying the idea of burying the pile where it sits, or "capping" it with a protective layer.

The Energy Department inherited responsibility for cleaning up the Moab pile in 2000, after federal legislation aimed at jump-starting a cleanup process took it away from the Nuclear Regulating Commission.

The same legislation ordered the Energy Department to come up with a plan to remediate the site.

The department finished a draft environmental study to clean up the Moab site in November 2004.

But the department disappointed all those who want the pile moved by refusing to identify removing the pile —— either by truck, train or pipeline —— as its "preferred solution."

The department is required to choose a preferred solution as part of its final study, and many onlookers hoped it would announce removal as that preferred option when it begins its new deliberations this week.

But Davis said the department won't make any decision until the final report is finished this summer —— once again leaving open the question of whether the department will choose another plan such as burying or "capping" the pile.

Potential for floods

Critics, however, say all other options to moving the Moab pile are bad ones.

The Moab site sits in a flood plain. Federal officials say current flooding already "washes over the toe of the pile." And recent studies said flooding would continue in the future.

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency —— joining the state of Utah, Metropolitan and others —— told the Energy Department any action short of removing the Moab pile was "environmentally unsatisfactory."

A potential hurdle could be the cost.

The Energy Department's draft environmental study estimates that it would take up to eight years and cost between $329 million and $418 million to remove the Moab pile, and an additional 80 years to clean up the groundwater contamination it has caused.

Davis, however, said those were rough numbers and suggested the costs could be higher.

Water officials, however, said the cost of cleaning up the pile now is nothing compared to what it would cost if a flood, storm or earthquake pushed the pile into the river.

"Source protection is a lot cheaper and better than trying to clean up after the accident happens," Kightlinger said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.