Ad
related to: uranium mining effects on environment
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Mining is the largest source of uranium contamination in the environment. [1] Uranium milling creates radioactive waste in the form of tailings, which contain uranium, radium, and polonium. Consequently, uranium mining results in "the unavoidable radioactive contamination of the environment by solid, liquid and gaseous wastes". [13]
Quantitative analyzes determine that, in the case of uranium, biosorption may vary within a range between 45 and 615 milligrams per gram of cell dry weight. However, it is a technique that requires a high amount of biomass to affect bioremediation; it presents problems of saturation and other cations that compete for binding to the bacterial ...
The Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project was created by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to monitor the cleanup of uranium mill tailings, a by-product of the uranium concentration process that poses risks to the public health and environment. The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act passed by Congress in 1978 ...
Large-scale uranium mining operations throughout the world have had a significant impact on indigenous peoples and their ways of life, raising questions concerning economic development of "remote regions" in relation to the impact on traditions life styles of these cultures, and resulting health and environmental hazards. [25]
The health effects discovered from radon exposure in unventilated uranium mining prompted the switch away from uranium mining via tunnel mining towards open cut and in-situ leaching technology, a method of extraction that does not produce the same occupational hazards, or mine tailings, as conventional mining.
The mining and milling of uranium present significant dangers to the environment. [ 31 ] In 2010, 41% of the world's uranium production was produced by in-situ leaching , which uses solutions to dissolve the uranium while leaving the rock in place. [ 32 ]
Uranium acid mine drainage refers to acidic water released from a uranium mining site using processes like underground mining and in-situ leaching. [1] Underground, the ores are not as reactive due to isolation from atmospheric oxygen and water. When uranium ores are mined, the ores are crushed into a powdery substance, thus increasing surface ...
Although the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Division said the spill's "short-term and long-term impacts on people and the environment were quite limited", [24] ponds of uranium-contaminated water lined the Puerco River and seeped into wells. United Nuclear denied claims that the spill caused livestock deaths, even though the Navajo ...