Fry Canyon, Utah

Fry Canyon was a small community in San Juan County, Utah, United States, located in Fry Canyon, just south of White Canyon, 50 miles (80 km) west on State Route 95 from its junction with U.S. Route 191 at Blanding.

The tiny hamlet, now a ghost town, is 19 miles (31 km) west-southwest of Woodenshoe Butte, and 8 miles (13 km) west-northwest of Natural Bridges National Monument.

The activities of a uranium ore upgrader mill (1957-1960) and a subsequent copper heap leach operation (1963-1968) at Fry Spring, two miles southeast of Fry Canyon, caused uranium, copper and radium contamination of groundwater in colluvial channel deposits within Fry Creek.

[2] The U.S. Geological Survey (with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies) installed three permeable reactive barriers, containing three different reactive materials (foamed zero-valent iron (ZVI) pellets, bone charcoal pellets, amorphous ferric oxyhydroxide (AFO) slurry mixed with pea gravel), at the site, which is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

[3] Media related to Fry Canyon, Utah at Wikimedia Commons

Map of Utah highlighting San Juan County