Uranium mill tailings water

DOE 1996. Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Ground Water Project, DOE/ EIS-0198, DOE, Washington, USA. 

Waugh, W. J., Smith, G. M., Bergman-Tabbert, D. Metzle, D. R. 2001. Evolution of cover systems for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project, USA. Mine Water and the Environment, 20, 190-197. 

Kalin M. 1988. Long-term ecological behaviour of abandoned uranium mill tailings. 3. Radionuclide concentrations and other characteristics of tailings, surface waters, and vegetation. Report to Environment Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, by Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Report No. EPS 3/HA/4. 

EPA has also decided that any accidental uranium waste containing 0.1 curies of radioactivity (150 kilograms) must be cleaned up. EPA calls this the Reportable Quantity Accidental Release. EPA also has established a standard for uranium mill tailings, hi the workplace, NIOSH/OSHA has set a Recommended Exposure Limit (REL) and a Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) of 0.05 mg/m (34 pCi/m ) for uranium dust, while the NRC has an occupational limit of 0.2 mg/m (130 pCi/m ). The NRC has set uranium release limits at 0.06 pCi/m (0.09 pg/m ) of air and 300 pCi/liter (450 pg/liter) of water. NRC and OSHA expect that the public will normally be exposed to much lower concentrations. For more information about recommendations the federal government has made to protect your health, see Chapter 7. 

White, A. F., Delany, J. M., and Smith, A., 1984. Groundwater contamination from an inactive uranium mill tailings pile 1. Application of a chemical mixing model. Water Resources Res., v. 20, no. 11, pp. 1743-1752. 

Zhu, C., Hu, F. Q., and Burden, D. S., 2001a, Multi-component reactive transport modeling of natural attenuation of an acid ground water plume at a uranium mill tailings site. J. Contaminant Hydrology, v. 52, pp. 85-108. 

Figure 5.5 Schematic cut through the Ranstad Uranium Mill Tailing Site showing major water pathways.

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