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The U.S. energy secretary made an alarming statement earlier this month. Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a congressional hearing that the plan to clean up a radioactive uranium dump that threatens the Colorado River may be delayed by 16 years.

That's right. Sixteen years.

Note to Secretary Bodman: Those of us who live downstream from this hazardous waste and drink Colorado River water aren't willing to wait 16 years.

Yes, we understand the threat isn't immediate; our state won't all be poisoned if the site isn't cleaned up in six months. We weren't thrilled when the Energy Department announced in 2005 that it would have the radioactive waste moved and secured in seven to 10 years, but we understand it was a massive project. The costs involved and the engineering challenges meant the cleanup couldn't be done speedily.

But 16 years?

It's a mystery to us why every member of Arizona's congressional delegation is not camped out at Bodman's door demanding an explanation and reversal of the delay. The health of Tucson and Phoenix — not to mention Las Vegas and Los Angeles — is directly linked to the health of the Colorado River.

Politicians from every state that uses the Colorado for drinking water should be pushing vigorously not only for the Moab cleanup but for a Colorado River protection plan, a multistate effort similar to the collaborative efforts put together by the Great Lakes states and those near Chesapeake Bay. In each case a group of states recognized they needed to protect a body of water that crosses multiple boundaries and served more than one jurisdiction.

In those states it was not, as it often is in the Southwest, a concern with the supply of water, but with the quality of the water, an issue that has not yet motivated Southwestern states to act collaboratively.

The debacle unfolding at Moab — one that we thought had been addressed two years ago — should once again provide a wake-up call for the governors and congressional representatives of the Colorado River states. There is ample documentation for the potential contaminations caused by mining wastes and nitrates from thousands of septic tanks.

The problem does not require more study. It requires political will.

The uranium tailings at Moab were supposed to be moved by 2012. At least, that was the word two years ago. But now, Bodman told Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, that the new schedule calls for the project to be completed in 2028. The Energy Department requested about $24 million for the cleanup in the 2008 budget released earlier this month.

The project is estimated to cost around $400 million.

Both Matheson and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, expressed their unhappiness with the delayed timeline in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Hatch issued a statement about the delay saying, "That's very disturbing to me, and I intend to push DOE to recognize the need to keep as close as possible to the original timeline."

The radioactive tailings at Moab, Utah, some 750 feet from the Colorado River near Arches National Park, are all that remains of a Cold War era uranium mill. The mill was owned by Atlas Minerals Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 1998 and put a temporary cap on the huge tailings dump.

The estimated 25 million people who live downstream of the Moab tailing site should be concerned about when and how the radioactive waste is removed. The material has the potential to create severe health hazards if a natural disaster washes any of it into the Colorado River, a major source of drinking water for the major metropolitan centers in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

Delaying cleanup of the uranium dump threatens the Colorado River and our state's future water supply. Removing the radioactive waste and protecting the river cannot wait another 16 years.