nuclear-news

Scandalous and continuing legacy of uranium mining in Niger

Uranium Mining in Niger ‘Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company’, The Blogger, 2 April 2010,“……….Uranium from Niger has served as a fuel for Europe’s energy supply for 40 years. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Niger has arguably reaped little but misery in return.The country in Africa’s Sahel zone is one of the world’s least-developed nations. One in four children dies before the age of five.The conditions in Niger are one of the dirty sides of supposedly clean nuclear energy. The activities there are well hidden from the outside world:

The uranium mining takes place in the middle of nowhere. There are bandits in the region who kidnap white people and sell them to al-Qaida. The region was long under martial law because of a rebellion by the Tuareg. Today, Arlit is still accessible only by military convoy.

Recently, however, a Greenpeace team went to Arlit. They brought along Geiger counters, which detected levels of radioactivity that were far higher than they should have been. There are two uranium mines in the area, one near Arlit and the other near the nearby town of Akokan. One is an open pit mine and the other reaches about 250 meters (820 feet) underground — the world’s largest underground uranium mine….
Life in the Vicinity of the Uranium MinesArlit was once glorified as a “second Paris”. But today it is a place where the desert wind blows red sand through the streets. It is a hot, red monochromatic place, with houses made of red clay and streets paved in red dust, where sandstorms repeatedly darken the sky.A massive hill, made up of 35 millions tons of waste material from the mine, is visible from the northwestern edge of Arlit.

Although the uranium has already been extracted from the material, it retains 85 percent of its radiation, stemming from substances like radium and thorium, which have half-lives measured in thousands of years. The waste material lies there, uncovered, exposed to the desert winds. Residents grow tomatoes and lettuce between the waste dump and the city.

The Blogger: Uranium Mining in Niger ‘Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company’

April 3, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Niger, politics | antinuclear, AREVA, France, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium, wastes