An old uranium well in the Kurgan region has flooded, and radioactive waste could reach the regional center.
According to local environmentalists, floodwaters have inundated the Dobrovolnoye deposit, which is located in the Zverinogolovsky district, 100 km from MoundOne of Rosatom's enterprises mines uranium here.
As the head of the regional fund for public monitoring of the environment explained Sergey Eremin, an old well that had been leaking for 35 years could have been under water.
"The underground uranium vein isn't enclosed in a sarcophagus. For many years, the ore body was sealed off by clay layers and hard rock at a depth of 400 meters. To extract uranium, hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of boreholes were drilled down to this ore body, damaging the natural sarcophagus. Now all of this has leaked into the water.", — a local ecologist clarified. Alexey Schwartz in a conversation with the Agency publication.
He does not rule out that radioactive dirt, which had accumulated over the years from spreading groundwater, was washed into the river. TobolDownstream is the city of Kurgan.
Expert of the Russian Social-Ecological Union Andrey Ozharovsky believes that such a leak will lead to an increase in the concentration of uranium salts in the Tobol River.
"If it enters a person's body through drinking water, it leads to internal radiation exposure, which is much more dangerous than external exposure," he emphasizes. "Of course, the Tobol River's water will greatly dilute the solution, and the concentrations won't exceed any standards. But the collective doses of the Kurgan residents will still increase, and some people will get sick. It's absolutely inevitable."
Environmentalists have been pushing for the closure of uranium wells at the Dobrovolnoye deposit for years, fearing radioactive waste could leak into groundwater and the Tobol River. However, Rosatom attributed these protests to "radiophobia," which hinders "the extraction of strategic raw materials and the development of the region."
If the water rises another meter, several more new wells will be at risk of flooding.
