WASTE MANAGEMENT | URANIUM MINE WASTE Moving mine waste
Disposal of historical mine waste derived from uranium mining still presents a challenge for the regulatory authorities and for the people who live nearby. Progress is slow but is evident
THE US NRC HAS ASSESSED that shifting waste from a mine site in New Mexico to a neighbouring mine site would be beneficial for a community that would rather see the waste removed out of state. The site is just one of hundreds affecting members of the Navaho Nation. Northeast Church Rock (NECR) is a former uranium mine in McKinley County, New Mexico, USA, that was operated by United Nuclear Corporation (UNC) between 1967 and 1982. UNC also operated the Church Rock uranium milling facility, less than 1.6km distant, from 1977 to 1982 under a licence issued by the State of New Mexico. Uranium from the NECR Mine Site and other local mines
was processed at the mill facility, and residual materials (‘tailings’) were placed in an impoundment (also known as a tailings dam). Work at these two sites directly affects the local populations. Three small communities – Red Water Pond Road, Pipeline Road and Pinedale – are all within a kilometre or two of the sites or between them. The sites are just two of hundreds in the region, but they illustrate the complexities of responding to the environmental degradation incurred in sourcing the fuel needed for the nuclear industry of the last century. Most significantly, the UNC Mill Site – and the surrounding country – suffered the USA’s biggest ever radiological event, on 16 July 1979, when a failure of the tailings dam released 350 million litres (93 million gallons) of tailings into local river drainages and into the underlying alluvium. At NECR Following the tailings spill and related corrective actions, UNC resumed uranium milling operations, and
eventually some 3.2Mt of tailings were held in the tailings impoundment at the UNC Mill Site. The US NRC now proposes to go ahead with a $42 million
project to shift contaminated material from the mine to long-term storage at the milling facility. It says the project will release land to local people and reduce the possibility of contamination spread, and it proposes to go ahead even though many local Navaho tribespeople say that rather than shifting waste a short distance – with around four years of truck movements and other local disruption – they want to see the waste removed from the region entirely.
An unwanted legacy There are 524 known abandoned uranium mine sites that were built and worked between 1944 and 1986 on the land that constitutes the Navajo Nation, in areas that often have social and religious significance for people that live in the region. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, over 30Mt of uranium was extracted from the mining sites on Navajo lands during that time. The Navajo Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes there could be far more. In a meeting in September 2022 between Navajo Nation
President Jonathan Nez and Council Delegate Rickie Nez, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Administrator Michael S. Regan and Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe, the Navaho representatives asked for faster work on remediation. They said that only 219 of the mine sites have available funds for clean-up and remediation efforts, leaving a total of 305 unaddressed.
Above: Navaho Nation is home to many uranium mining sites where clean up funding is not in place 22 | February 2023 |
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