URANIUM:The Mines & Radioactive

Waste Left Behind

Uranium Mines in Canada

Cigar Lake

Uranium City

Port Hope

www.porthopehealthconcerns.com

Ardoch Algonquin

Mine

Tailings

Mill

Environmental ThreatsWaste Dispersal

Water Contamination

Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Waste• Radioactive, acidic, acid-generating & heavy metals• Canada home to 109 million tons of waste rock &

214 million tons of tailings• Current waste generation: 0.5 million tons/year• Mining lower grade ore = more waste• “Long-term storage requires long term institutional

care” – Auditor General of Canada

Who regulates tailings?

• Canada’s laws deficient

• Operating mines/mills regulated by CNSC and provinces

• Improvements but radioactive spills frequent

• Long term containment of tailings remains an unsolved problem

Churchrock, New Mexico

Water Contamination

• Groundwater contamination • Surface water discharges • 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/year).

Elliot Lake

Robert Del Tredici

Key Lake

Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gases

• Radon gas• Volatile Organic Compounds• Sulfur dioxide emissions• Greenhouse gas emissions

What we don’t know…can hurt us

• How to eliminate 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.

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