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Finland's biggest chemical catastrophe in history
Greenpeace Finland is bearing witness and taking samples at a toxic spill that began on Sunday in the north of the country. The Talvivaara metal mine, owned and operated by Talvivaara Mining Company plc, has been leaking water containing high concentrations of nickel and uranium at a rate of between 5000-6000 cubic metres an hour. It is believed that the leak took place when the mine’s waste-water pool was breached on Sunday.
At first, Talvivaara mine was like a dream. A new beginning. A source of employment and tax money for Northern Finland.
This was the level of excitement when the new mine opened in Kainuu, some 550 kilometers from Helsinki. Pekka Perä, an ex-employee of the Finnish mining company Outokumpu had bought the site from his former employer for the price of one Euro.
The site had been considered unprofitable but Mr Perä was convinced it could become a showcase of a “mining renessaince.” He had a brand-new "bioleaching method" that would allow him to extract tiny concentrations of materials.
The dream didn’t last long and the wake-up call was harsh.
The mine started operations in October 2008 and the first problems started appearing the next summer. Tourist businesses around the mine complained that the mine reeked of rotten egg, repelling customers.
While the company was still struggling against the awkward smell, much worse problems began to surface. The waste-water pool started leaking for the first time in 2008. The next leak was detected in 2010. The lakes next to the mine turned salty. Measurements near the mine showed concentrations of cadmium and nickel far exceeding the official safety limits. And in March of this year, a mine worker failed to use protective gear and died of breathing hydrogen sulfide, the source of the "rotten egg" smell.
Everybody knew about this and yet the supervising authority, Kainuu Center for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment did nothing to the unbelievable irresponsible mining company. Now they say they couldn’t because they never had the resources nor the skills to do it.
Finally, on Sunday the situation got totally out of control. All the waste in the mine site ends up in huge waste-water pools containing heavy metals, dangerous chemicals and uranium. The bottom of this pool ripped and the heavily contaminated water started spewing out at a rate of thousands of cubic meters every hour. Now the dream has turned into a total nightmare. Greenpeace activists are taking samples of the leaking wastewater. So does the Finnish Nuclear Safety Authority and the Finnish Environment Institute. Nobody can tell yet exactly how bad the situation is. All we know is that it is bad.
Contaminated water has flowed already many kilometers downstream. Nearby creeks and lakes are contaminated by toxic nickel.
The beautiful lakes, rivers and creeks – clean freshwater - are the most valuable asset Finns have. You wouldn’t think that we would let somebody poison them. But it happened. The people downstream feel themselves totally powerless, and fear their own drinking water. Now it is up to us to stop the mine and get the Finnish adminstrators to tell us how they intend to guarantee that this will not happen again.
And you, my dear readers, please, take a lesson: be alert when somebody says there's big money to be made exploiting nature. Be prepared to fight. Make sure that your authorities fulfil their real duty and defend our future. These are usually hard fights but they are essential. You will avoid the nightmares we're experiencing now in Talvivaara.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/chemical-spill-finland/blog/42935/
Heavy metals made their way into local waters. Image: Kimmo Rauatmaa / Lehtikuva
7.11.2012 17:36|
Talvivaara waste water leak located
Talvivaara officials located the source of a leak in a gypsum waste water pond Wednesday. Overflow pools south of the waste pond are however filling up and may have to be drained off in the direction of Vuoksi.
Leak at a gypsum waste pond that has been pouring waste water into the environment since last Sunday.Workmen are attempting to plug the leak, but waste water continues to flow at the rate of 5,000–6,000 cubic meters per hour.
Most of the leakage is flowing south towards overflow pools. However the back-up pools are reaching capacity and the waste may have to be drained off in the direction of Vuoksi during the next 24 hours. So far none of the waste has reached the Vuoksi water system.
North of the leaking pool, a small portion of the waste water has seeped into to the local water course. Some of the leakage is being pumped back into sludge ponds and back-up pools.
The nickel content of waterways north of the leak near the Oulu River has declined to 0.4 milligrams per litre. At its highest late Monday night nickel was measured at 1.5 milligrams per litre. The mine’s environmental permit stipulates a limit of 0.5 milligrams per litre, with an upper limit of 1.0 milligram per litre
.
Talvivaara officials are hoping to resume suspended operations at the mine.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/talvivaara_waste_water_leak_located/6367543
Finnish mine struggles to fix leak, high uranium found
swissinfo.ch - Nov 9, 2012
Finnish mine struggles to fix leak, high uranium found. HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish nickel miner Talvivaara said on Friday it was still trying to fix a waste water leak at its mine in Sotkamo, eastern Finland, which resulted in high levels of uranium in nearby ...
Chicago Tribune - Nov 9, 2012
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's nuclear safety authority said it detected higher-than-normal uranium levels in waters near Talvivaara's Sotkamo mine, which has been leaking waste water. The level of uranium was 50-80 times higher than ...
Uranium-polluted water escapes from Finnish mine
Tengrinews - Nov 9, 2012
Radioactive emissions 50 times higher than normal have been detected in waters close to a nickel and zinc mine in central Finland after a pool holding contaminated water was damaged, AFP reports citing nuclear safety agency STUK and Finnish media. Finland's biggest chemical catastrophe in history
Greenpeace International (blog) - Nov 9, 2012
Greenpeace Finland is bearing witness and taking samples at a toxic spill that began on Sunday in the north of the country. The Talvivaara metal mine, owned and operated by Talvivaara Mining Company plc, has been leaking water containing high ... View
Ministry chief: Talvivaara mine should be shut down
YLE News - Nov 7, 2012uutiset · News · News 8.11.2012 8:30 | updated 8.11.2012 11:08. Ministry chief: Talvivaara mine should be shut down. Officials at the Talvivaara mine in eastern Finland are hopeful that they will be able to plug a leak in a gypsum waste pond on Thursday after ...
Click her to read the above stories:
The spill continues at rates of 100 - 200 liters per second. The precise location and the cause of the leak have not been identified yet. (ILTALEHTI Nov. 6, 2012)
According to provisional estimates, uranium activity concentrations of 100 - 200 Bq [4,000 - 8,000 micrograms] per litre are found in mine water currently being released from a leak in a gypsum pond at the Talvivaara mine. Precise results will be available only on Friday (Nov. 9), at the earliest. Finland does not have a standard for uranium in waste waters. The Finnish drinking water standard is 3 Bq per litre [120 micrograms per litre]. (STUK Nov. 7, 2012)
"Talvivaara Mining Company Plc has located the gypsum pond leakage detected on Sunday morning 4 November 2012 near the center of the approximately 60-hectare pond. The process of plugging has been initiated and as a result, the flow has already substantially diminished. As a result of the leakage, some elevated nickel concentrations have been detected in the northerly direction in the vicinity of the mining concession area. No leakage waters have been discharged from the mining concession area towards south as a consequence of the emergency dams and the measures taken." (Talvivaara Nov. 7, 2012)
Water samples collected in the mining area on Tuesday (Nov. 6) and Wednesday (Nov. 7) showed uranium activity concentrations of 1 - 5 Bq per litre, corresponding to about 40 - 150 micrograms per litre. On Tuesday, about three kilometers from the gypsum pond leak point north of the brook Salminen, a uranium activity concentration of 1.4 Bq per liter was measured, equivalent to 70 micrograms uranium per liter. This is around 50 - 80 times higher than before the spill. On Wednesday, the corresponding figure of the uranium content was still tripled there. (STUK Nov. 9, 2012) The funnel-shaped hole was plugged up Thursday night, but it started to leak again on Friday morning. (Helsingin Sanomat Nov. 9, 2012) Environmental permit for Talvivaara Sotkamo uranium byproduct recovery delayed due to appeals: Finnish miner Talvivaara will have to wait longer than expected for an environmental permit to extract uranium at its mine in eastern Finland, news agency STT reported on Monday (Oct. 8), raising the risk of delays to its production plans. The report said Talvivaara will need to wait until early next year for the permit, although the local agency had previously said it would decide on the permits this year. The process has been slowed down by 150 appeals from citizens and non-governmental organisations, the report said. (Reuters Oct. 8, 2012) Talvivaara plans massive expansion of Sotkamo mine: The controversial Talvivaara mine in Sotkamo in the north of Finland is planning a massive expansion of its mining operations. The mine, which has been under fire for excessive emissions, has launched a new environmental impact evaluation process aimed at getting authorisation for an expansion from the present 60 square kilometres to 134 square kilometres.
Plans are for a new bioheapleaching heap where metal is separated from the ore through bacterial action. The heap is to be five kilometres in length and width and eight metres high, and it would remain in the area even after the mine shuts down. Under the proposal, nickel production would increase fivefold to more than 100,000 tons a year. The investment of about EUR one billion would bring 1,000 new jobs to the mine, in addition to the present 505 jobs, as the nickel would be more thoroughly refined on the spot than is the case now. (Helsingin Sanomat Sep. 19, 2012) Municipality wants tougher conditions for Talvivaara Sotkamo mine permit: The municipality of Sotkamo in Kainuu wants more stringent conditions to be placed on the mining permit for the Talvivaara mine, which has been the source of unexpectedly high amounts of toxic emissions into local waters. A proposal coming before the Sotkamo Municipal Board, states that the capacity of the waters to absorb sodium, sulphate, and manganese need to be considered when setting maximum amounts in the permit.
Sotkamo also wants reconsideration of decisions to allow the extraction of water from the Nuasjärvi lake, as well as inspections of the bottom structures of piles of ore and pools of liquid, and the cleaning out of the bottoms of process pools. The proposal also calls for environmental investments within certain time limits, as well as the construction of safety structures to protect against the effects of flooding. The proposal would ban bringing in uranium ore to Sotkamo from other mines, although it does not oppose the processing of ore extracted from the Talvivaara mine.
A reassessment of the environmental and water permits for the Talvivaara mine and an application for a uranium extraction facility at the mine are currently being processed at the Regional State Administrative Agency of Northern Finland. The Talvivaara mining complex has come under fire for significantly higher waste water emissions into the local waterway than originally expected. (Helsingin Sanomat Sep. 10, 2012) Finnish regulator issues favourable opinion on expansion of Talvivaara Sotkamo uranium byproduct recovery project: On April 27, 2012, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
(STUK)
issued a favourable opinion on the expansion of mining uranium recovery plant at
the Talvivaara Sotkamo nickel mine.The opinion states that even after the expansion of mining the uranium recovery plant would not have harmful radiological effects on the environment, the recovery of uranium being in compliance with the best available techniques and best environmental practice.
> Download STUK opinion April 27, 2012
(in Finnish)
Activists appeal license issued for uranium byproduct recovery at
Talvivaara Sotkamo nickel mine: Environmentalists are to appeal a government
decision granting the Talvivaara Mining Company permission to produce uranium in
Kainuu. The government gave a permit for the operation at the start of this
month. The Finnish Association for Nature
Conservation (SLL) is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the decision, claiming it
violates Finland's law on nuclear energy.SLL points out that according to the nuclear energy legislation, companies should ensure their operations are safe and do not harm the environment. The association's chair Risto Sulkava says that local lakes have suffered an elevated saline content because of discharges from the mine. The company's permit application indicates that consumption of caustic soda and sulphuric acid at the mine would rise by about ten percent. If discharges were to similarly increase, salination problems in the area could worsen.
Talvivaara must clear further bureaucratic hurdles before uranium production can begin, including acquisition of an environmental permit. (YLE March 28, 2012) Protesters picket Talvivaara Mining Company general meeting: A group of about 40 protesters carrying signs and banners against the mining of uranium gathered on Tuesday (March 13) in front of the Marina Congress Center in Katajanokka in downtown Helsinki, where an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the Talvivaara Mining Company was taking place.
The Talvivaara mine in the northern rural community of Sotkamo, mainly produces nickel. It has been blamed for the serious contamination of waters in the area. Shareholders arriving the meeting were given leaflets urging that money raised in an extraordinary share issue should be used on fixing environmental damage by the company's mining operations. They also want the Talvivaara mine to suspend operations until a solution has been found to the damage inflicted on the water there. The protesters focused on the extraction of uranium, for which the government has given its blessing. (Helsingin Sanomat Mar. 13, 2012) License issued for uranium byproduct recovery at Talvivaara Sotkamo nickel mine: On March 1, 2012, Talvivaara Mining Company Plc announced that it was granted licence to extract uranium as a by-product from its existing operations. The permit is valid throughout the life of the mine, however, no longer than until the end of 2054.
Talvivaara's aim is to start uranium recovery in 2012, as soon as it has all the necessary permits. The start of uranium production is further subject to, among others, Environmental Permit approval and chemical authorisation. The Environmental Permit application for uranium extraction was submitted to the Regional Environmental Permitting Agency in March 2011 and the decision on the permit is expected during Q2 2012.
Talvivaara estimates that it will produce 300-350 tpa of uranium. Talvivaara will invest EUR 45-50 million in the recovery of uranium, of which Cameco will cover a maximum of USD 60 million in the form of advance payments. Environmental permit and start-up of Talvivaara mine uranium recovery plant approved, despite appeal: In the view of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
(STUK),
the uranium recovery process can be carried out so that the exposure of the
environment and its inhabitants from radiation is very low.> Download STUK opinion Jan. 20, 2012
(in Finnish)
Talvivaara mine to stop waste water emissions into environment: The
Talvivaara nickel mine in Sotkamo said on Wednesday (Jan. 18) that it would stop
all toxic emissions of water used in the mine's processes. Emissions from the
mine have been seen to cause considerable environmental damage to local
waters.In 2010 the waste water from the mine contained amounts of sulphates and manganese that considerably exceeded the maximum limits. “Big changes in processes will take place within a couple of weeks”, says Veli-Matti Hilla, environment chief at the mine. However, he emphasises that it would be almost a year before the extraction of water from the local waterway and the discharge of waste water from the mine can stop completely.
The metal is extracted from the ore at the Talvivaara mine through a process called Bioheapleaching. The water used in the process is to be recycled in the future. Talvivaara also promises to improve its dissemination of information to residents in the area. In a blog opened on Wednesday, the mine's CEO Pekka Perä admits that “mistakes have been made, and we need to learn from them”.
On Wednesday Talvivaara was granted permission by the European Commission to extract uranium at the Sotkamo mine. (Helsingin Sanomat Jan. 19, 2012) Finnish police investigate Talvivaara Sotkamo mine's waste water discharge: Finnish police are probing whether miner Talvivaara broke the law when discharging waste water with high levels of sodium, sulphate and manganese into lakes near its nickel mine in eastern Finland. The police investigation could delay Talvivaara's plans to expand production and extract uranium as a by-product.
The authority overseeing Talvivaara's operations said waste water samples in 2010 showed that high concentrations of sulphate, sodium and manganese had turned a nearby freshwater lake salty. (Reuters Nov. 14, 2011) Talvivaara Sotkamo uranium byproduct project obtains government permission: On June 15, 2011, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
(STUK) announced that it has granted
to Talvivaara Sotkamo Ltd permission under the Nuclear Energy Act for the
recovery of uranium.
Cameco to finance construction of uranium byproduct plant at Talvivaara
Sotkamo nickel/zinc mine and to buy uranium produced: Cameco has signed two
agreements to buy uranium produced at the Sotkamo nickel-zinc mine in eastern
Finland owned by the Talvivaara Mining Company Plc. Talvivaara plans to start
construction of the uranium extraction circuit in the coming months and complete
it in 2012. Talvivaara expects production of uranium at the Sotkamo mine to be
approximately 900,000 pounds (U3O8 equivalent) or 350 tU per year once the mine
ramps up to full production.Under the first agreement with Talvivaara, Cameco will provide an up-front investment, to a maximum of $60 million (US), to cover the construction cost of the uranium extraction circuit. Cameco's capital contribution will be repaid through the initial deliveries of uranium concentrates under the first agreement.
Once the capital is repaid, Cameco will purchase the uranium concentrates produced at Sotkamo through a second agreement that ends on December 31, 2027. (Cameco Feb. 7, 2011) Talvivaara applies for permit for by-product extraction of uranium at Sotkamo nickel/zinc mine: On Apr. 20, 2010, Talvivaara Mining Company Plc announced that its operating subsidiary Talvivaara Sotkamo Ltd has lodged an application in accordance with the Nuclear Energy Act to the Ministry of Employment and Economy
for the extraction
of uranium as a by-product. Preparations for the environmental impact assessment
relating to the uranium extraction process have also commenced at the mine site.
Finnish nickel/zinc miner plans uranium byproduct extraction: Finnish
nickel and zinc miner Talvivaara Mining
Company Plc is planning to invest EUR 30 million to modify its current
production processes to allow it to recover yellow cake, it announced on Tuesday
(Feb. 9). The company said that it was investigating the potential of recovering
uranium intermediate, or yellow cake, which was found as a byproduct of other
metals, from the orebodies it mined. Currently, small concentrations of uranium
were deposited in an engineered gypsum pond intended for process precipitations.
However, Talvivaara was planning to recover the uranium from its main leaching
process by using a solvent extraction process.Talvivaara was preparing the necessary documentation for permit applications and was holding talks with other companies regarding a possible cooperation agreement for the project. It would decide on a financing and operating model subsequent to concluding its discussions. The production costs to extract the yellow cake would amount to about EUR 2 million a year, with an expected output of about 350 t/y. (Mining Weekly Feb. 9, 2010)
Uranium grade in the ore is on the average 15-20 ppm (0.0015-0.0020%). Uranium concentration in the leach solution is low, approximately 25 mg/l, but sufficient for exploitation through the solvent extraction process developed by Talvivaara and its partners. Estimated capital expenditure is approx. EUR 30 million. The planned production will make Finland almost self-sufficient in uranium. (Talvivaara Feb. 9, 2010)
http://www.wise-uranium.org/upfi.html
