Antinuclear

AUDIO: new findings on problems in uranium mining clean-up

AUDIO  Uranium clean-up strategies challenged by new study A European study indicates that the clean-up and decontamination process after uranium mining might be more complicated than previously thought. French and German scientists examined a wetland in France that had been impacted by mining, and discovered that uranium can be highly mobile, and easily spread. They say mining companies must learn to check and test for this mobile form of uranium more thoroughly…….

LUCY CARTER: Dr Gavin Mudd, an environmental engineer at Monash University, says this study disproves some key information that mining companies have relied on when cleaning up and restoring sites.

LUCY CARTER: Is this something that we should be concerned about?

GAVIN MUDD: I think it’s something we should definitely take a lot of note of, because some of the same sort of technologies have been used at uranium mines in Australia. There’s certainly active discussion in Ranger and so on about wetlands should be part of a final rehabilitated land form at Ranger. So I think it has very big relevance for Australia and globally.

LUCY CARTER: Would you like to see Australian mining companies have a close look at this study?

GAVIN MUDD: Absolutely. I think it’s very, very important research that raises a lot of questions about our common approach to mine rehabilitation for uranium.

GAVIN MUDD: There’s some basic assumptions we’ve always made about the behaviour of uranium in the environment and so we’ve used that to design rehabilitation and remediation strategies at uranium mines and former nuclear sites. And so they’ve basically shown that sometimes those strategies are clearly not viable……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-18/uranium-clean-up-strategies-challenged-by-new-study/5163462

December 18, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Audiovisual