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Lethal Legacy? Abandoned uranium mines bring health worries

Lethal Legacy? Abandoned uranium mines bring health worries The Alliance September 28, 2009 BUFFALO — In a series of bluffs and buttes near the Montana and South Dakota border are the leavings of the atomic age.

A decade after the United States dropped atomic bombs at Hiro- shima and Nagasaki, uranium mining claims were filed on the 65,000 acres of the North Cave Hills, South Cave Hills and Slim Buttes areas of Custer National Forest’s Sioux Ranger District, about 100 miles north of Rapid City.
By 1965, the mining companies had closed operations, packed up offices and equipment and disappeared from the prairie.

Left behind and nearly forgotten were the 89 mined sites on national forest system land on the South Dakota portion of the Sioux Ranger District.

Harding County residents worry that the abandoned uranium mines might have caused a higher incidence of cancer in the area………….

In 1962, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission pushed for major uranium mining operations throughout the nation, including South Dakota…………
The uranium mining at the Riley Pass site in the North Cave Hills left behind areas with elevated radiation and heavy metal levels both in the mine area and the sediments, which are eroding……………….

for humans, there is no safe level of exposure to radiation, according to Diane D’Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a private environmental organization in Washington, D.C.

Low levels of radiation damage tissues, cells and other vital functions, causing cell death, genetic mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects and reproductive, immune and endocrine system disorders, D’Arrigo said.

The endocrine system includes the thyroid and pituitary glands.

“Every amount of radiation increases all these health effects,” D’Arrigo said.

The organization’s Web site, http://www.nirs.org, says long-term exposure to low levels of radiation can be more dangerous than short exposures to high levels.

D’Arrigo said federal officials who write regulations are unduly influenced by the energy industry, which gives a skewed perspective of what is acceptable.

“The science at any level will tell you any exposure is an increased risk,” D’Arrigo said.

… THE Alliance … THE Alliance … THE Alliance …: Lethal Legacy? Abandoned uranium mines bring health worries

September 29, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, health | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium, wastes