Saying it is not responsible for removing radioactive waste located near a former uranium milling site outside of Tuba City, El Paso Natural Gas Company has filed suit against the federal government.

The lawsuit seeks to have the federal agencies pay to clean up radioactive waste found in the Tuba City dump and at other nearby locations.

Contaminated water from the dump appears to have formed a plume heading in the direction of the villages of Upper Moenkopi and Lower Moencopi, where about 1,000 live, hydrologists and a geochemist said in March.

Residents in those villages rely on groundwater.

The geochemist was also able to link radioactive waste found at the dump to materials generated at the uranium mill.

A company that eventually became a subsidiary of El Paso Natural Gas had operated the milling site, which was used from 1955 to 1968 to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

Multiple federal agencies and the Navajo Nation had approved the use of the Tuba City dump for mill-related activities, the litigants said, and owned the tailings generated from the mill as a result.

“We think it’s the government’s responsibility to take care of any remedial problems there now,” said Robert C. Newberry, a spokesman for El Paso Corp.

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