URANIUM AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Comment:  More info from Dr Gordon Edwards about uranium mining, don't forget about the Mar 11: Uranium Mining in Virginia Symposium (look at side of page on this blog) where Dr. Edwards will be featured speaker!
Part G : URANIUM AND THE ENVIRONMENT

G.1. What are the greatest environmental risks from a uranium mine?
G.2. Does uranium mining cause water pollution?
G.3. What are the dangers of the tailings to humans, wildlife and the environment?
G.4. Is there a way to avoid this kind of radioactive contamination?
G.5. How long will the tailings be radioactive?
G.6. How long will it take to get rid of the hazard of uranium tailings?
G.7. Can modern science eliminate atomic radiation from radioactive tailings?
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G.1. What are the greatest environmental risks from a uranium mine?

The greatest risks to the environment are (1) contamination of ground water and river systems with dissolved radioactive materials; (2) catastrophic failures of tailings containment; (3) the dispersal of radioactive dust, which finds its way into water, plants, animals, fish and humans; (4) releases of radon gas into the air, which will deposit radon daughters on the ground for hundreds of miles around; (5) pollution of surface and ground water by chemical pollutants in tailings, notable heavy metals, acids, ammonia and salts.

In the short term, chemical pollution has caused by far the most damage.  Radiation hazards are more subtle and will take longer to be manifested.

Unless the tailings are properly disposed of, these hazards will continue unabated for thousands of years. .

G.2. Does uranium mining cause water pollution?

During routine mine and milling operations, radioactive substances and other chemical contaminants (including sulphuric acid) will escape into the water. In Ontario, the entire Serpent River system -- including more than a dozen lakes -- were badly contaminated for 55 miles downstream from the uranium mines in the Elliot Lake area by the late 70s. At that time, the International Joint Commission identified the Serpent River system as the largest single contributor of radium contamination to the Great Lakes. The situation has improved since then as corrective measures have been taken.

In the Elliot Lake area, there have been over thirty tailings dam failures. In 1979, a new tailings dam built with the latest technology suddenly collapsed in Churchrock, New Mexico; the resulting spill was the greatest accidental release of radioactive material into the environment prior to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

At Key Lake in Saskatchewan, there were more than half a dozen radioactive spills within six months of the mine's starting operations in 1985. The main problem at Key Lake is that the tailings area is too small, even though it is a modern mine.

G.3. What are the dangers of the tailings to humans, wildlife and the environment?

Unless uranium tailing are perfectly contained in some kind of storage system which has yet to be devised, humans and animals who come close to the tailings cannot help ingesting or inhaling some of this radioactive material, which seeps into the air, the food and the water. In this way, damage can be done to the lungs, skin, kidneys, blood, bones and reproductive organs. Over a period of years, that damage can lead to many types of illnesses, including cancers and leukemia. It can also lead to diseases and malformations in children, even before they are born.

A major study of Navajo Indians who worked as uranium miners, and those living near uranium tailings on the Colorado plateau, is almost finished. The children of these people have a very high rate of birth defects. A study in Malaysia is currently documenting changes in blood and ill health among children exposed to thorium and uranium waste.

Radioactive materials in the tailings can also be carried very far away in the bodies of animals, fish or birds. Anybody eating the meat from these contaminated animals will get the radioactive material inside his or her own body.

G.4. Is there a way to avoid this kind of radioactive contamination?

Since people have to breathe and eat and drink, it is impossible to avoid the radioactive material once it is released from the deep rock and brought to the surface and crushed and spread into the environment. The only remedy is prevention. Either the crushed rock should not be allowed to get into the environment, or the radioactive material should not be brought to the surface.

G.5. How long will the tailings be radioactive?

The uranium which is taken away and sold represents only about one seventh of the total radioactivity in the rock. The rest will be left in the tailings, which will remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years -- far longer than the span of recorded human history.

In fact, the amount of radium in the tailings, and the amount of radon gas given off by the tailings, will not diminish much for the first 5,000 or 10,000 years.
G.6. How long will it take to get rid of the hazard of uranium tailings?

Unless a great deal of money is spent on engineered deep storage of the mine and mill tailings, they will be left at the mine site forever. No mine or mill site has yet been cleaned up in a permanently satisfactory way anywhere in the world.

New stringent laws for covering (but not burying) mine and mill tailings in the U.S. have made mining companies move away to other countries where there are no such detailed laws. Canada does not yet have detailed laws requiring the removal or covering of mine and mill tailings by the mining companies, nor does the Canadian government require deep burial in rock. In most cases, Canada does not even fence in the abandoned radioactive material or post signs to warn people that it is dangerous.

G.7. Can modern science eliminate atomic radiation from radioactive tailings?

Modern science has no way to eliminate this radiation. There is no practical way to neutralize radioactive materials, to destroy them or to render them harmless.

Attempts are underway to try to put radioactive mine and mill tailings back into the ground, like the ore from which they originated, because the radioactive materials in the tailings were less harmful to animals and humans when they were underground.

However, we do not know how to put the sand back together as a rock, nor do we know how to call back all the radon gas, the liquid effluents and the radioactive dust which have been released into the environment. Because the finely ground tailings are much more easily dissolved than the original ore, we cannot ensure that ground-water contamination will not occur following burial. Also, because the tailings will remain dangerous for a period of time which exceeds the span of human history, it is difficult to judge whether our storage methods will be adequate.

Special thanks to Dr Gordon Edwards, CCNR: http://ccnr.org/

Read more:
http://www.sea-us.org.au/disc-guide/disc-guide-g.html