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Sierra Club outlines Cameco’s uranium pollution

But Cameco says the Sierra Club’s allegations that it massively exceeded regulatory limits are false.

The commission will hear from both sides as public hearings start Tuesday on Cameco’s application to renew its mine and mill licences for its Key Lake, McArthur River and Rabbit Lake facilities.

“The most disturbing thing we discovered in the process of preparing the submission were huge, very huge numbers, in terms of pollution that’s coming from the plant and getting into the environment,” John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said Monday.

“Every kind of pollutant that comes out of them, their numbers are way over the limits and no one’s been enforcing it.”

The Sierra Club says that as of 2010, water releases from the Deilmann tailings facility in cadmium exceed the Saskatchewan standard by 5,782 per cent.

It says the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment allows Cameco to release water from tailings ponds directly into the environment at Horsefly Lake.

The organization also says at the McArthur River site, concentrations of arsenic, selenium, and uranium in water effluent have exceeded the standards by 54 per cent for arsenic, 700 per cent for selenium and 1,230 per cent for uranium. It says blueberries and fish are contaminated with uranium.

The Sierra Club says the pollution is increasing the risk to human health and local eco-systems.

“We think that before any kind of change, any kind of renewal of the licence, there needs to be an environmental impact study — which there hasn’t been yet,” Bennett said in an interview from Ottawa……..

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings, which are being held in La Ronge, will last three days and will be webcast on nuclearsafety.gc.ca. http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Cameco+Sierra+Club+face+over+uranium+licences+Saskatchewan/8978684/story.html

October 1, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, environment, Uranium