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Generation of polluted waters from mining wastes in a uranium deposit.

Dump consisting of 9500 tons of rich-in-pyrite mining wastes located in the uranium deposit Curilo, Western Bulgaria, was, after rainfall, an intensive source of acid drainage waters. These waters had a pH in the range of about 1.7-4.5 and contained radionuclides (uranium, radium), heavy metals (copper, zinc, cadmium, lead, nickel, cobalt, iron, and manganese), arsenic and sulphates in concentrations usually much higher than the relevant permissible levels for waters intended for use in the agriculture and/or industry. The generation of these polluted waters was studied under real field conditions for a period of about seven years during different climatic seasons. It was found that the dump was inhabited by a diverse microflora in which some acidophilic chemolithotrophic bacteria were the prevalent microorganisms. The solubilization of the above-mentioned pollutants from the dump material was connected mainly with the oxidation of pyrite and other sulphide minerals by these bacteria. Their activity depended on some essential environmental factors such as temperature, pH, and water, oxygen and nutrient contents in the dump.

Acid Rain↗

Development and use of statistical survey criteria for release of materials at a former uranium processing facility.

To minimize the amount of waste and to recover reusable resources during demolition of radioactively contaminated facilities, building construction material and equipment can be efficiently and successfully surveyed using statistical methods described in this article. A radioactive contamination survey strategy aimed at reducing survey technician labor while still providing assurance that only uncontaminated material is released for salvage is discussed. Provided is the survey method, rationale, and results of three case studies where this method was successfully employed at a former uranium processing facility.

Construction Materials↗

Interim storage of spent and disused sealed sources: optimisation of external dose distribution in waste grids using the MCNPX code.

Radioactive sealed sources are in use worldwide in different fields of application. When no further use is foreseen for these sources, they become spent or disused sealed sources and are subject to a specific waste management scheme. Portugal does have a Radioactive Waste Interim Storage Facility where spent or disused sealed sources are conditioned in a cement matrix inside concrete drums and following the geometrical disposition of a grid. The gamma dose values around each grid depend on the drum's enclosed activity and radionuclides considered, as well as on the drums distribution in the various layers of the grid. This work proposes a method based on the Monte Carlo simulation using the MCNPX code to estimate the best drum arrangement through the optimisation of dose distribution in a grid. Measured dose rate values at 1 m distance from the surface of the chosen optimised grid were used to validate the corresponding computational grid model.

Computer Simulation↗

90Sr migration to the geo-sphere from a waste burial in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Results are presented from an ongoing field-scale experimental study (namely the Chernobyl Pilot Site project) aimed at characterization of processes controlling (90)Sr releases from a shallow trench containing nuclear fuel particles, and subsequent radionuclide transport in the underlying sandy aquifer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant site. Microscopic analyses of waste material and leaching experiments have shown that 10-30% of the radioactive inventory is associated with chemically extra-stable Zr-U-O particles. The largest fraction of (90)Sr activity in the trench ( approximately 30-60%) is currently associated with relatively slowly dissolving non-oxidized UO(2) matrix fuel particles. The (90)Sr migration velocity in the eolian sand aquifer is retarded by sorption to approximately 9% of groundwater flow velocity (K(d) approximately 2 ml/g). The dispersivity values for non-reactive solute transport in the aquifer predicted by geostatistics (i.e. 0.8 6 cm) were confirmed by a natural gradient tracer test using (36)Cl. The observed negative correlation between hydraulic conductivity and K(d) of aquifer sediments suggests that (90)Sr could be subjected to larger dispersion in the subsurface compared with (36)Cl.

Environmental Monitoring↗