Mining North America: An Environmental History Since 1522 by John R. McNeill & George Vrtis

Author:John R. McNeill & George Vrtis [McNeill, John R. & Vrtis, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, United States, General, Nature, Environmental Conservation & Protection
ISBN: 9780520279162
Google: MpLhDgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0520279174
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2017-07-11T00:48:37.621000+00:00

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF THE URANIUM BOOM

Mines

The “nuclear fuel cycle” has several stages: mining; milling ore to produce yellowcake; enrichment to separate and concentrate fissionable isotopes; fuel fabrication for reactors, weapons, or other purposes; and disposal. Uranium mining and milling, the “front end” of the fuel cycle, is a mechanical and chemical process similar to extracting and processing any other metallic ore—it is destructive and causes significant environmental changes. Domestic mining and milling for radium and vanadium during the opening decades of the twentieth century generated local pollution from the small mines and milling operations. Laboratories and factories that refined and sold radium products contaminated numerous communities throughout the nation. The rapid mid-century expansion of uranium mining and processing, however, amplified the industry’s environmental impact. The boom eventually resulted in about 4,000 mines with documented production, though as many as 15,000 mine locations contained varying concentrations of uranium. At peak production, in 1961–1962, there were 925 active uranium mines.15 The majority were located in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming, with three-quarters of them on federal or tribal lands. Most of them were underground mines, though a few were open-pit operations. Collectively, mines that had significant historical production generated about 3 billion metric tons of waste.16

As with any mining operation, overburden material and unmarketable ore formed massive tailings piles. Unreclaimed uranium and other hazardous materials commonly associated with uranium, such as arsenic, copper, phosphate, molybdenum, and vanadium, leached from tailings piles into nearby watercourses or blew off the piles as dust deposits that contaminated neighboring lands and communities. At the mills, processing chemicals leached from tailings and fouled rivers. Exhaust fans ventilated rock dust, radioactive gases, and reduction wastes from mines and mills into the atmosphere; tailings piles exhaled radon gas. Open-pit mine operations, which generate roughly forty-five times more mine waste than underground operations, destroyed vast areas at the mine itself and under the tailings piles. Boomtowns, with all their requirements for domestic urban infrastructure, blossomed in fragile desert ecosystems. And when demand for uranium waned and the mines and mills closed, tailings piles eroded, machinery and infrastructure decayed, and the once-thriving towns lost their vitality.17

Underground, miners faced additional environmental hazards. Most uranium mines were small operations located in remote areas, thus increasing the difficulties of risk management and safety oversight; about 60 percent of mines during the peak production years employed fewer than fifteen miners, and only about 13 percent employed more than fifty miners.18 Risks typical of any mining operation were a constant part of their physically demanding and dangerous employment. Detonations filled the mines with dust and gas as miners blasted free the marketable ore. Mines were filled with machinery designed more for production than safety. Timbers and bolts stabilized walls and roofs, but collapses were a constant danger. Noise and engine exhaust underground added to the workday hardships. This hazardous work was done by thousands of white miners, many of them Mormon, and by a significant number of Native Americans, especially Navajos. In addition to

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