URANIUM:
The Mines & Radioactive
Waste Left Behind
Uranium Mines
Rabbit Lake
Cigar Lake
Uranium City
Port Hope
Ardoch Algonquin
Environmental
Threats
Waste Dispersal
Water Contamination
Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Exposure to radioactivity & toxins
Waste
• Acidic, potentially acid generating and contain long-
lived radionuclides, heavy metals and other
contaminants.
• Whole groups of organisms have disappeared downstream
from some uranium tailings areas. Radiation hazards are
more subtle and will take longer to be manifested.
• Canadian uranium mines and mills have already
created 109 million tonnes of waste rock and 214
million tonnes of tailings. Current rate of half a
million tonnes/year.
• Mining of lower grade ores will be mean more
tailings.
• Long-term storage requires long-term institutional
Who regulates tailings?
• Canada has no detailed laws on removal or covering of mine and mill
tailings by mining companies.
• Tailings management of operating uranium mines/mills regulated by the
Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and provincial authorities.
• Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive mine tailings or refinery
wastes, neglected by the authorities, have been used in the construction.
• Tailings management during the operational phase has greatly improved
in the last fifteen years. But even at the newest mines, radioactive spills
are frequent.
• The long term containment of uranium tailings remains a major unsolved
problem. Concrete "pots" have cracked and leaked after less than five
years of use.
Water Contamination
• Severe contamination of groundwater with
radionuclides, heavy metals, and other contaminants
has occurred at tailings management facilities and
waste rock storage areas.
• Surface water discharges from uranium mining and
milling facility have resulted in the contamination of the
surrounding environment with radionuclides and
heavy metals. Effluent from uranium mines and mills
has been classified as “toxic” for the purposes of the
Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
• Uranium mining operations involve extensive
pumping-out of groundwater (in excess of 16 billion
litres per year).
Elliot Lake
Robert Del Tredici
Churchrock, New Mexico
Key Lake
Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Significant sources of atmospheric releases of radon
gas.
• In 2004, VOC emissions from the uranium milling
operations were equivalent to average annual
emissions of more than 300,000 cars.
• The Rabbit Lake acid plant reported releases of
43,000 tonnes of SO2 in 2004, ranking it among the
largest sources of SO2 emissions in Canada.
• GHG emissions arise from the operation of mining
equipment, milling and tailings management
processes, and mine site closure and post-closure
care activities.
Hazards to humans &
wildlife
• Contamination of natural environment
and wildlife near uranium mines and
mills via windblown dust from tailings
sites and effluent discharges to surface
waters.
• Uranium mining operations involve
major disruptions of the surface
landscape, and surface and
groundwater flows.
What we don’t
know…can hurt us
• How to eliminate, neutralize or destroy radiation
• Effects of chronic exposure to low level radiation
on biota and ecosystems
• How to decommission uranium mines so as to
minimize radionuclide migration forever
• Significance of other contaminants released by
uranium mining.
Care needed
now — and
foreverbe managed
• Decommissioned mines must
essentially forever to prevent the release of
radioactive contaminants from tailings and
waste rock to the surrounding ecosystem and
community.
Recent headlines
• Cameco says concrete barrier at Cigar Lake has been
poured, work going ahead - February 19, 2008
• Cameco's Rabbit Lake mine back in operation (after
flooding) – January 2, 2008
• Cameco to spend up to Can$20 million to clean up
Port Hope, Ont., plant – January 28, 2008