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The valuable uranium-bearing minerals are then removed via heap leaching with the use of acids or bases, and the remaining radioactive sludge, called "uranium tailings", is stored in huge impoundments. A short ton (907 kg) of ore yields one to five pounds (0.45 to 2.3 kg) of uranium depending on the uranium content of the mineral. [3]
At around 5:30 am on July 16, 1979, a previously identified crack opened into a 20-foot-breach (6.1 m) in the south cell of United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock temporary uranium mill tailings disposal pond, and 1,100 short tons (1,000 t) of solid radioactive mill waste and about 93 million US gallons (350,000 m 3) of acidic, radioactive tailings solution flowed into Pipeline Arroyo, a ...
The Moab uranium mill tailings pile is a uranium mill waste pond situated alongside the Colorado River, currently under the control of the U.S. Department of Energy. Locals refer to it as the Moab Tailings Pile. In 1952 U.S. geologist Charles Steen found the largest uranium deposit in the United States near Moab, Utah. The uranium was processed ...
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Navy nuclear propulsion; in later years, it produced low-enriched uranium for fuel for ...
Time and again, a mining company promised to clean up uranium waste in New Mexico. Now it wants to buy out residents and avoid full cleanup. Their town was polluted with radioactive waste.
Uravan Uranium Project, [42] at the now-abandoned town of Uravan, in Montrose County. In addition, there are 15 Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) sites in the state, under the purview of the United States Department of Energy. Eight of the sites are former uranium ore mills, and seven are engineered permanent disposal sites for the ...
The tailings dam failure that caused the Church Rock uranium mill spill on July 16, 1979, remains the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history. [18] [19] In May 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would join the Navajo Nation EPA in cleaning up radioactive contamination near the Church Rock mine ...
The Grand Junction Climax Mill was operative for 19 years and produced 2.2 million tons of radioactive tailings, according to the US Department of Energy. [5] From the early 1950s to 1966, Climax donated approximately 300,000 tons of radioactive uranium tailings from the mill to the city of Grand Junction for use as construction material. [7]