Uranium spill at Australian mine appears contained
Date: 15-Jan-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
South Australia state's acting minister for minerals and energy, Rob Lucas, said the initial findings of the South Australia Radiation Protection Branch indicated there had been no risk to workers, the public or the environment.
He said most of the spill - totalling around 60,000 litres of uranium solution - was contained within the mine's evaporation ponds after the incident. The accident happened on Friday but was not made public till the weekend.
"The mine is not currently in production mode and will not recommence until approvals are given," Lucas said in a statement.
The leak spilled onto a 400 square metre site at the outback Beverley mine 600 km (370 miles) north of Adelaide when a plastic elbow pipe ruptured during routine maintenance work, the mine's operator, Heathgate Resources Ltd said.
About 70 workers at the remote mine site are flown in typically for two-week work stints. The closest community to the mine is an Aboriginal settlement some 60 km (37 miles) away, Heathgate vice president Stephen Middleton told Reuters.
Middleton said Heathgate's U.S.-based parent, General Atomic, would keep the mine idle until at least the end of this week while the site was cleaned up and further inspections into the cause of the incident were completed.
"The loss of any production is secondary to ensuring the integrity of the mining operation," Middleton said.
Heathgate captures uranium contained in sand by injecting oxygen to create an "in situ" leaching solution that is dried, leaving talc-like uranium, or yellowcake.
The mine is designed to yield about 1,000 tonnes of the hazardous material a year, used to run nuclear power plants in the United States and Japan.
Middleton said the spillage was highly diluted and had largely evaporated or soaked into the ground.
The Australian Conservation Foundation, an environmental group opposed to in situ uranium mining, said any move to restart the mine prior to any independent assessment of the accident would be unacceptable.
"At a minimum, mining at Beverley must be halted until there has been a detailed and independent assessment of what went wrong and what the impacts are," said a nuclear campaigner for the foundation, Dave Sweeney.