nuclear-news

Lingering health issues from old uranium mines in South Africa

A compromising health issue Times Live, SIPHO MASONDO | 05 February, Lecturers at a Johannesburg college that is surrounded by three abandoned mine dumps claim that  they are getting sick from exposure to uranium. Medical reports on
lecturers at the Central Johannesburg College’s Highveld campus
suggest that their health is being compromised by swirling clouds of
uranium-filled dust emanating from mine dumps surrounding the area.

The reports reveal similar symptoms – chronic nasal allergies,
allergic rhinitis and sinuses – all of which are associated with the
inhalation of dust.

But more than the short-term effects, the lecturers fear long-term
exposure to the uranium carried in the dust.

No one knows when the dumps around the college were established, but
environmentalist Mariette Liefferink said they were probably
established in the early 1950s.

“These are abandoned mines and we don’t know who owns them. They were
decommissioned and abandoned many years ago.”

Neither the Department of Higher Education and Training nor the
college bothered to conduct an environmental impact assessment when
the Highveld Campus relocated from Parktown in 2006.

But while there has been no epidemiological study conducted on the
medical conditions associated with the long-term exposure to uranium,
Professor Frank Winde at North West University in Potchefstroom said
numerous other studies have shown that uranium contains radon, which
causes lung cancer.

The Chamber of Mines of South Africa has published mine residue dump guidelines.

These include that no human settlement should be established within a
500m radius of any dump. The chamber environmental officer Stephina
Mudau said ideally the college and the department of education should
have conducted studies before relocating to Highveld campus.

In 2009 the auditor-general told parliament that South Africa would
need R30-billion to rehabilitate the country’s 1730 abandoned mines.

Gauteng, the site of South Africa’s mining industryg has about 380
mine-residue deposits – most of them in Randfontein on the West Rand.

The Department of Mineral resources, tasked with rehabilitating
abandoned mines, said it was not rehabilitating mine-residue deposits
because some mining companies have started mining them again……

But, argue the lecturers, they will present their medical reports on
Thursday at a meeting with college management and senior officials
from the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Experts are expected to make presentations to the officials on the
medical conditions associated with dust and uranium.

Based on the results of the meeting, the officials will decide whether
or not to relocate them….
A US STUDY

Uranium endangers communities

A STUDY conducted last year by a professor at the Tufts University
School of Medicine in Boston in the US says that, though previous
studies have focused on miners’ exposure to uranium, evidence shows
that communities can also suffer from exposure to it.

“Additional novel toxicologic findings, including some at the
molecular level, are now emerging that raise the biological
plausibility of adverse effects on the brain, on reproduction,
including estrogenic effects, on gene expression, and on uranium
metabolism,” said Professor Doug Brugge.

His study found that, in New Mexico, communities were still affected
by uranium mines decommissioned decades ago.

Hundreds of miners in Navajo had died or became ill as a result of
being exposed to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated
drinking water, he said. – Sipho Masondo
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/02/05/a-compromising-health-issue

February 7, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, South Africa