Uranium mining could make Kalahari unliveable
Nuclear and heavy metal contamination of the Stampriet Aquifer would be an environmental, social and economic disaster, experts warn.
ELLANIE SMIT
WINDHOEK
The result of in-situ leach (ISL) uranium mining could displace Kalahari communities in Namibia for generations if it contaminates the Stampriet Aquifer.
The Stampriet Uranium Aquifer Mining Committee says that ISL uranium mining can severely jeopardise Namibia’s biggest and most valuable underground drinking water resource, which is absolutely critical to the farming community in the Kalahari of south-eastern Namibia who relies totally on this resource for its livelihood and economy.
“Nuclear and heavy metal contamination of the aquifer would be an environmental, social and economic disaster and its long-term consequences could be borne by Namibians alone,” it said.
The committee was responding to a published letter by Andrey Shutov, president of Uranium One Group, representing Headspring Investment, who has continually defended its drilling work for uranium in the Stampriet Artesian Basin after the agriculture ministry cancelled two prospecting permits previously issued to them.
According to the committee, the uranium deposits Headspring Investments is interested in occur in underground aquifer sandstone layers containing high-quality drinking water in what is called the Stampriet Artesian Basin (SAB) or Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System (STAS).
The STAS covers 87 000 square kilometres and extends into Botswana and South Africa, where the same aquifer sandstones are pumped.
Lifeblood
“The water in the main sandstone layers (six in total) is artesian to subartesian and is the lifeblood of the farming communities living in the entire region.
“There is no permanent surface water. There are no alternative water sources in this vast area of the arid Kalahari and it is only the STAS aquifer that makes it possible for people to live there permanently,” the committee says.
The committee says ISL involves drilling patterns of thousands of boreholes into the uranium orebody.
“This pattern, with a borehole spacing of 20-30 metres, is significantly denser than that for oil and gas fracking.
“Such patterns consist of injection and abstraction boreholes - normally one abstraction borehole centred between four, five or six injection boreholes.”
Worse than fracking
Furthermore, it says that sulphuric acid is pumped into the ore via the injection boreholes.
“In the STAS, the groundwater in the aquifer sandstones flows naturally in a southerly direction. Although only a few metres per year, this rate of flow is greatly enhanced in coarse-grained layers in the sandstones and by hard pumping of the large number of irrigation projects downstream of mineralised area.”
The committee says these projects account for about 90% of the total water usage in the basin.
Headspring Investments holds eight exclusive prospecting licences (EPLs) which cover a swathe of more than 50 km wide and 500 km long. The EPLs amount to 3.72 million hectares in area, equivalent to 43% of the Namibian sector of the STAS.
No guarantee
“Namibians should be under no illusions. There can be no guarantee by anyone that ISL uranium mining on the STAS will not cause radioactive contamination of our biggest underground reservoir of high-quality drinking water.
“If this project goes ahead, it would ultimately result in tens of thousands of leaching boreholes, each one posing a risk of toxic radioactive and heavy metal contamination to the STAS groundwater.”
The committee says that contaminated water can be treated as long as the aquifer is confined but it is highly complicated and extremely expensive.
“For contaminating solutions lost into laterally extensive sheet sandstones such as those of the STAS, recovery and treatment is impossible.”
[email protected]
WINDHOEK
The result of in-situ leach (ISL) uranium mining could displace Kalahari communities in Namibia for generations if it contaminates the Stampriet Aquifer.
The Stampriet Uranium Aquifer Mining Committee says that ISL uranium mining can severely jeopardise Namibia’s biggest and most valuable underground drinking water resource, which is absolutely critical to the farming community in the Kalahari of south-eastern Namibia who relies totally on this resource for its livelihood and economy.
“Nuclear and heavy metal contamination of the aquifer would be an environmental, social and economic disaster and its long-term consequences could be borne by Namibians alone,” it said.
The committee was responding to a published letter by Andrey Shutov, president of Uranium One Group, representing Headspring Investment, who has continually defended its drilling work for uranium in the Stampriet Artesian Basin after the agriculture ministry cancelled two prospecting permits previously issued to them.
According to the committee, the uranium deposits Headspring Investments is interested in occur in underground aquifer sandstone layers containing high-quality drinking water in what is called the Stampriet Artesian Basin (SAB) or Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System (STAS).
The STAS covers 87 000 square kilometres and extends into Botswana and South Africa, where the same aquifer sandstones are pumped.
Lifeblood
“The water in the main sandstone layers (six in total) is artesian to subartesian and is the lifeblood of the farming communities living in the entire region.
“There is no permanent surface water. There are no alternative water sources in this vast area of the arid Kalahari and it is only the STAS aquifer that makes it possible for people to live there permanently,” the committee says.
The committee says ISL involves drilling patterns of thousands of boreholes into the uranium orebody.
“This pattern, with a borehole spacing of 20-30 metres, is significantly denser than that for oil and gas fracking.
“Such patterns consist of injection and abstraction boreholes - normally one abstraction borehole centred between four, five or six injection boreholes.”
Worse than fracking
Furthermore, it says that sulphuric acid is pumped into the ore via the injection boreholes.
“In the STAS, the groundwater in the aquifer sandstones flows naturally in a southerly direction. Although only a few metres per year, this rate of flow is greatly enhanced in coarse-grained layers in the sandstones and by hard pumping of the large number of irrigation projects downstream of mineralised area.”
The committee says these projects account for about 90% of the total water usage in the basin.
Headspring Investments holds eight exclusive prospecting licences (EPLs) which cover a swathe of more than 50 km wide and 500 km long. The EPLs amount to 3.72 million hectares in area, equivalent to 43% of the Namibian sector of the STAS.
No guarantee
“Namibians should be under no illusions. There can be no guarantee by anyone that ISL uranium mining on the STAS will not cause radioactive contamination of our biggest underground reservoir of high-quality drinking water.
“If this project goes ahead, it would ultimately result in tens of thousands of leaching boreholes, each one posing a risk of toxic radioactive and heavy metal contamination to the STAS groundwater.”
The committee says that contaminated water can be treated as long as the aquifer is confined but it is highly complicated and extremely expensive.
“For contaminating solutions lost into laterally extensive sheet sandstones such as those of the STAS, recovery and treatment is impossible.”
[email protected]
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