Any safety study that is done on uranium mining will look at all three currently approved methods for mining ore: In situ, open pit and underground, according to Virginia Uranium Inc. Vice President Mick Mastilovic.
“The first two are traditional methods,” he said. “The open pit is used for other kinds of mineral mining, like copper and iron. You basically open up the ground and take the ore out.
“It’s like playing in a sand pit. The advantage of it is everything is in the open. The disadvantage is everything is in the open.”
Mastilovic, a mechanical engineer, said that while he’s not a chemical engineer, he believes uranium mining can be done safely.
Proving that it can be done safely will be up to independent experts, but the three possible methods that will most likely be studied also are the most common methods. That doesn’t mean they’re simple.
“A lot of study has to go into the site before designing something like in situ,” he said.
Aquifers, wells, water monitoring and complex designs that are site specific must be studied and created.
The process involves minimal surface disturbance, but the uranium must be in a porous or permeable sandstone aquifer. A leaching solution is injected into the uranium-bearing site.
“It’s like a big straw,” he said. “Solution goes in and comes out.”
While in situ is believed to be the environmentally friendliest method - it has the least amount of residue and no tailings - it comes with its own demands and challenges.
It also comes with some advantages.
“The advantage of in situ is there is no disturbance on the ground and there are no tailings,” Mastilovic said. Dust and airborne elements are all but eliminated because of the process.
The solution injected into the ground allows the uranium to dissolve in the ground water before it is pulled back up to the surface.
Production wells, located between the injection wells, pump the solution to the surface where a facility extracts the uranium from the solution. The mined aquifer is surrounded by monitor wells, which are frequently sampled to ensure that all mining fluids are retained within the mining zone.
Water used during the process is treated for the removal of uranium and radium. A very small volume of radioactive sludge results; this sludge is disposed of at an Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed uranium tailings facility.
Underground mining is another, more environmentally friendly method - requiring not as much ground disturbance as open pit. It’s also the most common mining method in use today.
“Underground mining is like mining anywhere else, like coal mining in Kentucky, that sort of thing,” Mastilovic said. “The advantage to underground mining is you might see the head-frame, where you have the elevators to the shafts underground and some ventilation structures to make sure the miners have ventilation, but other than that the ground is not visibly disturbed.”
However, he pointed out there are disadvantages with the method as well.
“The disadvantage is you’ve got to have all those structures and it’s a lot harder if there is an accident – you’ve got to reach that scene and it’s a lot harder,” Mastilovic said. “Most miners prefer open pit because you can see everything.”
No decision on what kind of mining method has been made and can’t be made until a safety study is conducted, he said.
“I’ve got a vision and someone else might have another,” Mastilovic noted. “The question is not what the best method is, but what the safest method is. I think of it like a car. Cars are neither safe nor dangerous in themselves. It depends on the regulations – how fast you can drive that sort of thing.”
The state will decide what kinds of things to use as safety indicators.
“The state will decide what regulations or whatever they decide should make up the safety study,” he said.
“We don’t know what they’ll decide to study, but once that study is done, if it is approved we’ll still have to meet those standards and go through the permitting process. No one has set up those standards. It’s just the beginning. People are afraid we’re going to go out and start mining tomorrow, but we’re just beginning. It’s going to be a long process.”
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