Officials Point to Uranium Mine as GroundWater Table Contaminant

[Ichingcarpenter]

Officials for BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, and its subsidiary Atlantic Richfield have insisted until now that the uranium could not be tied to the mine. They maintained the high concentrations were due to a naturally occurring phenomenon beneath Nevada's mineral-laden mountains.

For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.
They say they have been met by a stone wall from state regulators, local politicians and the huge oil company that inherited the toxic site — BP PLC.

Those interests have insisted uranium naturally occurs in the region's soil and there's no way to prove that a half-century of processing metals at the former Anaconda pit mine is responsible for the contamination.

That has changed. A new wave of testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found that 79 percent of the wells tested north of the World War II-era copper mine have dangerous levels of uranium or arsenic or both that make the water unsafe to drink.

And, more importantly to the neighbors, that the source of the pollution is a groundwater plume that has slowly migrated from the 6-square-mile mine site.

http://news.aol.com/article/officials-point-to-uranium-mine-as-water/778556

[Altoid_Cyclist]

1. BP just isn't having a good week in the PR department.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AT3FE20091130

Between the new spill in Alaska and your post, it appears obvious that they haven't learned anything over the years. Well, actually they've learned that they can damage the environment as much as they please and only get a slap on the wrist.

Short history of BP and the numerous spills and fines in the past which are still occurring in the present time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP

[madokie]

2. Anyone who thinks that nuclear power is the way for us to get out of this mess we're in

is nutts. You know why there has supposedly been no deaths from the nuke power industry as some here holler and scream ever chance they get, it's because the nuke industry does not admit to anything even when faced with evidence they hem and haw and accept nothing. The nuclear power industry makes our own James Inhofe sound almost sane.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. So, now it's been pointed out this is a copper mine...

...do the same rules apply? "No more wind turbine windings until we've solved the waste problem!" and such like?

;)

[kristopher]

3. The EPA is *finally* back to doing their job... nt

[madokie]

4. Yes finally

The rest of my life I hope to never hear another person say that it really doesn't matter who the president is, cause it damn sure does.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Just to split hairs, this is a copper mine, despite the sign mentioned in the 2nd para ...

of the original article. This is noted in the picture caption and several paras lower. (Also, the Anaconda Copper Mine is one of the best-known mines in world history.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Copper_Mine_(Nevada)

So this really has nothing to do with nuclear power; the uranium is a low-level natural contaminant in the area which is incidental to the operation of the mine. (Not that they didn't mess up the ground water -- it just wasn't for the purposes of extracting uranium.)

[joshcryer]

6. It has *something* to do with nuclear because, as the article notes, they tried getting uranium...

...from the byproducts of the copper mining. But yes it does seem that this is a copper mine gone bad, and the actions of the nuclear refiners is unclear.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. They turned a failed copper mine into a failed uranium mine?

Wow. Get those boys seats on the board of Enron.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. I don't think it counts as a failed copper mine

At least, not in terms of copper produced. As a triumph of environmental protection techniques it wasn't so hot.

[Nederland]

8. It has *nothing* to do with nuclear power

Here is the relevant paragraph:

A mineral firm launched a then-secret plan to produce yellowcake uranium from the mine's waste piles in the 1970s. An engineer reported in 1976 that they weren't finding as much uranium as anticipated in the processing ponds. "Where could it be now?" he wrote. "Should we continue to look for it?"

Had they continued the search outside the processing area, Wyoming Mineral Corp. likely would have detected the movement of the contamination. But the market for uranium dipped and the company scuttled the venture.

My reading of what happened is this: they tried to get uranium out of the waste piles but failed, because too much of the uranium had already leached out of the waste piles and into the ground water. In other words, even if the US had banned nuclear power from day one, the uranium would still have entered the ground water as a result of decades of copper mining.

[joshcryer]

10. My take was inconclusive, but good old Dead_Parrot found some good info.

I thought that there was a possibility, going only by the article, that the uranium project could have led to contamination, however, it is clear from Dead_Parrot's link that the mine has huge leech fields and this is clearly a byproduct of the copper mining.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Looks like they were hoping to process the tailings

Easy pickings if there's enough there - the rock is already processed, you just need different extraction chemicals.

Except that the uranium had already vanished into the groundwater, so they buggered off. Interesting jump from "mine a Uranium company looked at once" to "uranium mine", but I guess it sells news.

EPA page on the site: http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/vwsoalphabetic/Anaconda+Mine?OpenDocument
Curiously, no mention of teh evul uranium miners.

[joshcryer]

11. Yes, that's a much more accurate interpretation. Thanks for your usually accurate take on things.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. My google fu is unstoppable

I learned the way of the crouching tab in Nepal, y'know.

[joshcryer]

15. Stupid external hard-drive prevents me from using my keyboard, so...

...I'm lazy. :P

Thanks though.

edit, clarification, I have a laptop and have to lean over to use its keyboard, it's a pain. ;) Usually keep the external hard drive unplugged though.