Uranium in the environment : mining impact and consequences ; [results of the Uranium Mining and Hydrogeology Congress held in September 2005, in Freiberg, Germany

Uranium is an element to be found ubiquitous in rock, soil, and water. Uranium concentrations in natural ground water can be more than several hundreds μg/l without impact from mining, nuclear industry, and fertilizers. Considering the WHO recommendation for drinking water of 15 μg/l (has been as low as 2 μg/l before) due to the chemical toxicity of uranium the element uranium has become an important issue in environmental research. Besides natural enrichment of uranium in aquifers uranium mining and milling activities, further uranium processing to nuclear fuel, emissions form burning coal and oil, and the application of uranium containing phosphate fertilizers may enrich the natural uranium concentrations in soil and water by far. In October 1995 the first international conference on Uranium Mining and Hydrogeology (UMH I) was held in Freiberg being organized by the Department of Geology at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg by the support of the Saxon State Ministry of Geology and Environment. Due to the large scientific interest in the topic of uranium a second conference (UMH II) took place in Freiberg in September 1998. Furthermore, in September 2002 scientists working on the topic of uranium mining and hydrogeology attended the third conference (UMH III) which was jointly held together with the International Mine Water - sociation (IMWA) Symposium 2002. The reviewed papers and posters of the 2002 conference have been published by Springer entitled Uranium in the aquatic en- ronment (edited by Merkel, Planer-Friedrich and Wolkersdorfer). Long-term Aspects of Uranium Mining Remediation....Pages 1-9 Returning the WISMUT Legacy to Productive Use....Pages 11-26 The Effects of Weathering and Diagenetic Processes on the Geochemical Stability of Uranium Mill Tailings....Pages 27-46 Long term fate of uranium tailings in mountain areas....Pages 47-56 Rock phosphates and P fertilizers as sources of U contamination in agricultural soils....Pages 57-67 Monitoring of natural radionuclides in soils as a tool for precision farming - methodical aspects....Pages 69-77 Electrophoretic characterization of thorium species in very dilute solutions containing humic acid....Pages 79-86 Field Portable and Autonomous Immunosensors for the Detection of Environmental Contaminants....Pages 87-95 A method to measure arsenic readily released to pore waters from uranium mill tailings....Pages 97-106 Impact of humic acid on the uranium migration in the environment....Pages 107-116 Uranium speciation in two Freital mine tailing samples: EXAFS, μ-XRD, and μ-XRF results....Pages 117-126 Site characterisation of the potential Natural Analogue Site Heselbach in Bavaria/Germany....Pages 127-135 Speciation of Colloid-borne Uranium by EXAFS and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy....Pages 137-147 Influence of allochthonous plant litter on the fixation of Uranium in sediments....Pages 149-157 Advanced Investigations of Unconventional Uranium and Thorium Deposits by In-Situ μ -EDXRF Analysis....Pages 159-163 Depleted Uranium (DU ) — Chemo- and Radiotoxicity....Pages 165-174 Effect of uranium and cadmium uptake on oxidative stress reactions for Phaseolus vulgaris ....Pages 175-182 Coupled Microbial and Chemical Reactions in Uranium Bioremediation....Pages 183-190 Biotransformation of uranium complexed with organic ligands....Pages 191-197 Changes of bacterial community structure of a uranium mining waste pile sample induced by addition of U(VI)....Pages 199-205 Sorption mechanisms and models. Their influence on transport calculation....Pages 207-216 Simulation of propagation of leachate after the ISL mining closure....Pages 217-224 Raffinate Neutralization Experiments at the McClean Lake Mill — Removal of Arsenic and Nickel....Pages 225-234 Dynamical Models for Uranium Leaching — Production and Remediation Cases....Pages 235-245 Development of a 2-D modeling system for reactive transport in variable saturated porous media....Pages 247-254 Modelling of uranium release from waste rock pile....Pages 255-262 The Role of Groundwater-Stream Interactions for Uranium Fluxes in Fluvial Systems....Pages 263-274 Long-term performance of reactive materials in PRBs for uranium remediation....Pages 275-285 Uranium leaching during short term application of pit-water on a carbonate containing soil in the Mendoza province of Argentina....Pages 287-298 Simultaneous In-Situ Immobilisation of Uranium and Arsenic by Injectible Iron and Stimulated Autotrophic Sulphate Reduction....Pages 299-308 The modeling system for finding the optimal mining and wastewater discharge....Pages 309-316 Pilot Scale RAPS-System in Gernrode/Harz Mountains....Pages 317-328 Passive Biological Treatment Systems of Mine Waters at WISMUT Sites....Pages 329-340 Uranium Fate in Saturated Porous Media under Arsenic, Iron and Bacteria Influence: The Role of Potassium....Pages 341-358 Interaction of uranium from seepage water with hydroxyapatite....Pages 359-368 Integrated water protection approaches under the WISMUT project: The Ronneburg case....Pages 369-379 The results of the pilot plant study for arsenic removal....Pages 381-388 Uranium in natural wetlands: a hydrogeochemical approach to reveal immobilization processes....Pages 389-397 Removal of heavy metals, arsenic and uranium from model solutions and mine drainage waters....Pages 399-408 Passive Treatment of Minewater at the Schlema-Alberoda Site....Pages 409-414 Decommissioning of Uranium mill tailings ponds at WISMUT (Germany)....Pages 415-423 Characterizing Uranium Solubilization Under Natural Near Oxic Conditions....Pages 425-435 The optimal strategy of cleaning of fucoid sandstone....Pages 437-447 A novel technology for sealing and immobilization — the use of precipitation processes from supersaturated solutions....Pages 449-458 Variation in heavy metal uptake by crop plants....Pages 459-468 Phytoavailability of uranium: influence of plant species and soil characteristics....Pages 469-476 Uranium accumulator plants from the centre of Portugal — their potential to phytoremediation....Pages 477-482 Soil treatment with nitrogen facilitates continuous phytoextraction of heavy metals....Pages 483-493 Possible biomineralisation of uranium in Lemna gibba G3....Pages 495-505 Accumulation of natural radionuclides in wooden and grass vegetation from abandoned uranium mines. Opportunities for phytoremediation....Pages 507-518 Study of radiophytoremediation on heavily polluted area in South Bohemia....Pages 519-524 Localisation of uranium in roots by chemical extractions and by a short term uptake study. Influence of phosphate.....Pages 525-530 Study of the chemical leaching of uranium from several mineralogical layers....Pages 531-536 Environmental Management and Optimization of In-situ-Leaching at Beverley....Pages 537-546 Favourable Factors for Uranium Mineralization in District Surguja, India....Pages 547-551 Long-term aspects of waste rock piles and tailing in Kyrgyzstan....Pages 553-562 Risk assessment of emergency situation initiation in the uranium tailings of Kyrgyzstan....Pages 563-570 Environmental regulation of uranium mining in Australia....Pages 571-583 Former mining activities influence Uranium concentrations in the Elbe river near Magdeburg....Pages 585-592 Modelling Underground Ventilation Networks and Radon Flow for Radiological Protection Using VUMA....Pages 593-599 Integration of Life Cycle Assessments in the decision-making process for environmental protection measures and remedial action at active and abandoned mining sites....Pages 601-608 Simulation of Liberation and Transport of Radium from Uranium Tailings....Pages 609-618 Preliminary Hydrogeologic Investigations of Nubia Sandstone and fractured Basement Aquifers in the Area between El Shalateen and Halayeb, Eastern Desert, Egypt....Pages 619-638 Development of water-borne radioactive discharges at WISMUT and resulting radiation exposures....Pages 639-645 Radionuclide Data for Geothermal Prospection — A Contribution to the Geothermal Resources Map of Saxony....Pages 647-654 Contaminated Sediments in the Elbe Basin and its Tributary Mulde....Pages 655-662 Lead isotope ratios as a tracer for contaminated waters from uranium mining and milling....Pages 663-670 Moab, Utah, UMTRA Site: The last large uranium mill tailings pile to be cleaned up in the United States....Pages 671-682 U isotopic fractionation — a process characterising groundwater systems....Pages 683-690 Contamination of Hydrographic Bassins in Uranium Mining Areas of Portugal....Pages 691-702 Environmental impact evaluation of uranifer waste dumps from mining explorations — Barzava mine....Pages 703-711 Hydrochemical Aspects of the Flooding of the Mine Königstein — A Water Mixing Model for Recognizing the Influence of Groundwater by Contaminated Water....Pages 713-719 The use of BaSO 4 supersaturated solutions for in-situ immobilization of heavy metals in the abandoned Wismut GmbH uranium mine at Königstein....Pages 721-727 Management of uranium mill tailings and associated environmental monitoring in India....Pages 729-737 Cover and final landform design for the B-zone waste rock pile at Rabbit Lake Mine....Pages 739-749 A GPS-Based System for Radium/Uranium Contamination Gamma Scanning....Pages 751-756 Use of underground excavated space for disposal of low radioactive mining waste resulted from uranium ore exploitation. Study case....Pages 757-764 Changes in discharged water quality from abandoned uranium mines near Kalna....Pages 765-772 Environmental impact evaluation of a pilot installation for “in situ” processing for uranium ore....Pages 773-778 Concept of a Surface Water Monitoring at the Former Uranium Mining Site Schlema-Alberoda....Pages 779-787 Potential environmental impact resulting from inadequate remediation of uranium mining in the Karoo Uranium Province, South Africa....Pages 789-799 Regulating Idle Uranium Mines In Canada....Pages 801-806 Long-term Impacts of Gold and Uranium Mining on Water Quality in Dolomitic Regions — examples from the Wonderfonteinspruit catchment in South Africa....Pages 807-816 Tracer Tests as a Mean of Remediation Procedures in Mines....Pages 817-822 Typification of Radioactive Contamination Conditions in Ground Water at the Semipalatinsk Test Site....Pages 823-829 Spatial and temporal variations in the uranium series background in Alpine groundwater....Pages 831-839 Distribution Pattern Uranium Isotopes in Lake Sediments....Pages 841-846 Origin of high 234 U/ 238 U ratio in post-permafrost aquifers....Pages 847-856 Uranium in phosphate fertilizer production....Pages 857-866 Uranium contents in acidic lakes and groundwater of Lower Lusatia (Germany)....Pages 867-874 Changes in Uranium concentration in the Weisse Elster River as a mirror of the Remediation in the former WISMUT mining area....Pages 875-884 Factors affecting the plant availability of uranium in soils....Pages 885-894

This book presents the results from the Uranium Mining and Hydrogeology Congress held in September 2005, in Freiberg, Germany. It addresses scientists and engineers involved in the areas of uranium mining and milling sites, clean-up measures, emissions of nuclear power plants and radioactive waste disposal, as well as political decision-makers.

The topics covered are: impact on groundwater from radionuclide emission, analytical specification techniques, chemical toxicity, radioisotope plant uptake, microbiology, geochemical and reactive transport, case studies on active and abandoned uranium mines and milling sites, long-term storage of radioactive waste, passive in situ treatment techniques and risk assessment studies.

The accompanying CD-ROM includes all papers in colour.