Antinuclear

30 years after closing, Queensland’s Mary Kathleen uranium mine still leaks radioactive water

Queensland’s last uranium mine still leaking radioactive water 30 years after production stopped   John McCarthy  The Courier-Mail  March 21, 2013  THE state’s last uranium mine at Mary Kathleen – in the Selwyn Range between Mount Isa and Cloncurry – is still leaking radioactive water from the site 30 years after production stopped. But, according to a committee report handed to the State Government this week, the return of uranium mining to Queensland is “risky but manageable”.

“The uranium mining industry has a number of inherent environmental risks,” the report said….. The report says the Mary Kathleen mine’s pit is still full of highly contaminated water to a depth of about 50m, and since the mine closed in 1982, several other studies have found “ongoing environmental legacy issues”.

Those include the seepage of acidic, metal-rich, radioactive waters from the base of the tailings dam into the former evaporation ponds and local drainage system.

Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Dave Sweeney said there was no evidence that uranium mining was safe because not one former mine had been rehabilitated properly.

“In the Northern Territory there is a range of old mines, maybe a dozen or more, that are still being cleaned up 50 years after the event,” Mr Sweeney said…… http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queenslands-last-uranium-mine-still-leaking-radioactive-water-30-years-after-production-stopped/story-e6freoof-1226601866129

March 21, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Queensland, uranium