The image above is an annotated Google! Earth image of the Elliot Lake area (click the image to enlarge it, use your "back" button to return to this page). It highlights several tailings management sites that are undergoing perpetual management to try to minimize their impact on the environment.
Here is a chronology of the Elliot Lake mining experience:
Elliot Lake, Ontario:
o Uranium discovered in 1953
o The Lacnor Mine operated from 1957 to 1960, producing 2.7 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Nordic Mine operated from 1957 to 1968 and produced 12 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Panel Mine and Mill produced uranium from 1958 to 1961, and then again from 1979 to 1990. It produced 16 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Pronto Mine and Mill processed 2.1 million tonnes of uranium ore between 1955 and 1960, when the mill was converted to process copper. Copper processing continued until 1970. The Pronto Mill produced 4 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Quirke Mine (1 and 2) and Mill operated from 1956 to 1961, and then from 1968 to 1990. It produced 46 million tonnes of tailings and waste rock. (Rio Algom)
o The Spanish-American mill operated from 1958 to 1959 and dumped 400,000 tonnes of waste in Oliver Lake. (Rio Algom)
o The Milliken and Stanleigh mines and mills produced 20 million tonnes of waste and tailings. The Milliken mill operated from 1958 to 1964, and the Stanleigh mill operated from 1957 to 1960, and again from 1983 to 1996. (Rio Algom)
o Denison Mines Limited operated in Elliot Lake from 1957 to March 1992, producing about 70
million tonnes of waste at the Stanrock (inactive since 1964), Can-Met, and Denison (inactive since 1992) mines.
o By 1976 all 55 miles of the Serpent River system were badly contaminated with acid generating, highly radioactive wastes. An official Ontario report noted that there were no living fish in the entire river located downstream from the mining wastes.
o In 1978 alone, more than 30 tailing dam failures were reported.
o In August 1993, two million litres of contaminated water spilled from a tailings site at Rio Algom’s Stanleigh mine as a result of a power failure. Rio Algom was charged by the Atomic
Energy Control Board with one count of failure to provide appropriate training for its employees, and one count of failure to prevent the spill under “reasonably foreseeable circumstances”. The radiologically and chemically contaminated water spilled into McCabe Lake.
Source: www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Uranium/Uranium_Canada_2006, p. 2.
Here are selected extracts from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's 1996 report on "decommissioning" the Elliot Lake tailings sites (a nice word for saying industry is preparing to hand off perpetual management of the sites to the government and taxpayers):
"The tailings of the Elliot Lake uranium mines present a perpetual environmental hazard. The tailings contain sulphide minerals, which generate acid when exposed to air and water concurrently. They also contain various heavy metals, including radioactive isotopes of thorium and radium, the solubility of which is increased when exposed to acidic conditions. Radioactive contaminants are an important public concern.
To establish an effective containment system for the wastes, the panel concludes that the tailings must be permanently contained in such a way as to insulate them from concurrent exposure to air and water, and to prevent their dispersion into the environment. In the Elliot lake environment, the best way to do this is to keep the reactive tailings permanently water saturated.
Given the permanent nature of the hazards presented by the tailings, the panel recommends that an adequate containment system must be supported in perpetuity by effective care and maintenance programs. Such programs must include vigilant monitoring, maintenance, repair and, as necessary, system modification in the light of experience and technological advances. There should also be a capability to repair promptly major failures caused by exceptional unforeseen events.
The longevity of the tailings hazard must also be considered in the context of inevitable uncertainties regarding the detailed behaviour and long-term evolution of the complex ecological systems associated with the areas."
Depressing but essential reading.
Source: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/010/0001/0001/0014/elliot_e.pdf
