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Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

Payson Roundup 8 Feb 09
After decades of delay, the U.S. Forest Service is seeking public comments about a slow-motion contamination risk — the radioactive dirt piles left over from now-abandoned uranium mines in the Young Ranger District along popular Workman Creek in the Sierra Anchas……………

………….Many of these tailings dump sites lie along Workman Creek, which drains into Roosevelt Lake, which is a drinking water reservoir for Phoenix. Tests show sufficiently high radiation levels in the creek that the Forest Service advises people against eating fish caught in the creek…………….

………..Although federal officials have known for years of the contamination along the creek that empties into Roosevelt Lake, they still have no idea how much a cleanup will cost…………….

………….The tailings and abandoned mine shafts represent one small, local toll in the rush after the invention of the atom bomb to mine enough of the dense, weakly radioactive material to build thousands of warheads and fuel nuclear power plants. Other fallout from that boom in exploration locally before doctors understood fully the low-term effects of low-level radiation includes a raft of cancer cases among Navajo miners.

The Payson Roundup / Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radiation, uranium

February 9, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA