New book ‘102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground‘ spotlights global reclamation projects
Stories of reinvented coal mining regions, regenerated communities and rebuilt ecosystems are told in a new book published this month.
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Homestake Mining, a former uranium miner, has been ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pay $500,000 for clean-up at its four abandoned uranium mines in the Mariano Lake and Smith Lake on the Navajo Nation’s lands.
“EPA has a polluter pays policy that seeks to make those responsible for environmental damage pay for the clean-up,” said in a statement Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Administrator in the Pacific Southwest Region.
Abandoned uranium mine in Navajo Land.
Over the next few months, Homestake will have to conduct extensive radiation survey of the mine sites to measure risks, backfill open holes and mitigate surface features that pose physical threats to people or animals.
The company will also have to post bilingual warning signs around the sites, as well as sample surface and subsurface soils in the areas around the mines. This first phase of clean-up of the uranium contamination is expected to be completed by fall 2015.
The Mariano Lake mine operated as a uranium mine from 1977 to 1982. From 1944 to 1986 nearly 4 million tons of uranium ore was extracted from mines on lands belonging to the Navajo Nation, which holds nearly 70,000 square km of land spread over three states in the Four Corners area of the U.S. Southwest.
Images courtesy of EPA.
2 Comments
SeanThomes
cleaning these despoiled lands will cost billions of dollars. $500K seems like barely a ripple in that pond.
Matt
Lee Garlands old place at Eagles Nest! 500,000 is only a walk-about to check on radiation. Cleanup will be in the billions. This is why modern mining has gotten so expensive. We now mine in ways that remediation is part of the process.