a glowing future

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http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4101

 

The Other Side of Nuclear Waste

Alana Herro – June 14, 2006 – 11:24am

The residents of Kara Agach, a mountain village in western Kyrgystan, are

receiving radiation doses as much as 40 times the internationally recognized

safety limit, according to a new study cited in the June 10 issue of New

Scientist. After intensive uranium mining from the 1940s to the 1960s, the

region is home to 23 radioactive waste dumps, many of which risk being dislodged

by earthquakes, landslides, and other geologic activity. As the villagers of

Kara Agach ingest contaminated food on a daily basis, the 25,000 people who live

three kilometers downstream are at constant risk of the waste entering the river

system and affecting their health. The unstable dumps also threaten neighboring

Uzbekistan’s main agricultural center, the Fergana valley, some 20 kilometers

west.

 

Uranium mining is an essential part of the nuclear energy industry, but its

health and environmental effects are often overshadowed by debates over the

safety and byproducts of nuclear power plants. (According to Karen Charman,

author of a recent two-part series on nuclear energy in World Watch magazine, as

reactors and equipment age there can be no guarantee that Chornobyl-like

disasters will not happen again.) But the problems associated with the uranium

feedstock are no less serious.

 

The waste sludge from uranium mining, known as tailings, contains radioactive

isotopes such as radium-226, which decays into radon, a cancer-inducing gas.

Ingestion or long-term exposure to radium increases the risk of developing

debilitating diseases including lymphoma, leukemia, and aplastic anemia. But the

uranium boom shows no signs of slowing. Between 2002 and 2004, global uranium

production increased 11 percent, reports the Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). And the NEA

estimates that production could double by 2010 as worldwide energy needs grow.

 

The nuclear industry says it has significantly reduced the environmental impacts

of uranium mining by requiring such practices as keeping the tailings under

water and then burying them so the radon is not released. Even so, Ian

Hore-Lacy, a scientist with the World Nuclear Association in London, does not

have “great confidence†that all countries will adhere to such standards,

particularly developing countries where enforcement is lax. If the demand for

uranium grows faster than current mines can produce it, the pressure to loosen

environmental standards could have dire consequences for those who work in or

live near uranium mines.

 

 

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