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Uranium’s toxic legacy in Texas

Nukes mean mines
Are we digging a new toxic legacy before the last one’s filled in?

CURRENT  By <!– –>Greg Harman 16 Sept 09
“……………..an official of the Railroad Commission’s Surface Mining & Reclamation Division wrote that uranium mill tailings at the edge of his lake emit “up to” 850 micro-Rem of radioactivity per hour. In the time it takes you to thread a worm on a hook and reel in a catch, your body could be hit with nearly twice the average annual dose of ionizing radiation you receive from natural and medical sources…….The lakes are only the most glaring reminder of South Texas’ uranium-mining history. Dozens of more modern, underground “in-situ” mining sites are scattered from Karnes County all the way to Laredo, along with uranium mills and processing plants, where mined uranium is treated with acid to leach out a refined “yellow cake.” Karnes County is also home to a string of disposal pits outside Panna Maria and Hobson used by the energy companies that mined South Texas through the 1980s. Today, these pits are filled with more than 20-million tons of radioactive tailings and processing wastes that will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. They have leaked into area groundwater, and one spoiled aquifer in western Karnes has been tagged by the U.S. Department of Energy with an estimated cleanup cost of $350 million.

The Texas Mining & Reclamation Association estimates more than 76- million pounds of uranium have been produced in Texas, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Should the so-called nuclear rennaissance pan out and new reactors be built, a demand for fuel will certainly follow………………………

The environmental and public-health costs associated with nuclear power have largely been brushed aside with an optimistic nod to the future. In a meeting with members of the political-accountability group COPS-Metro Alliance on Sunday, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro repeated that he was “comfortable” with the environmental impact of nuclear power.

While critics evaluate uranium mining and radioactive waste disposal in “moral terms — leaving something to future generations we really don’t have a handle on,” Castro said, “I believe in the decades to come there will be a safe way to deal with that waste.” Like the nonexistent dumps that proponents hope will one day safely store our nuclear waste for what amounts to eternity, the risks involved in uranium mining and processing should be a starting point for any debate about the promise and peril of nuclear power, yet it has received scant attention in San Antonio’s decision whether or not to partner in the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear complex.

The plants, the dumps, the mines — perhaps they’re simply too far from San Antonio to register. But the aftermath of our last uranium boom still echoes loudly in South Texas.

SA Current – NEWS+FEATURES: Nukes mean mines

September 17, 2009 - Posted by | 1, environment, USA | , , , , ,

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