Response: Over more than 25 years, ISL mining has been proven to be less intrusive than other forms of mining.
It is essentially a water pumping activity, which - in Beverley's case - will draw salty, radioactive groundwater from a confined aquifer at a depth of about 110 metres.
An oxidant and a small amount of acid will be added to the groundwater to produce a weak acid mining solution with a pH equivalent to orange juice or red wine. The oxidant mobilises the uranium and the acid keeps it in solution until it reaches the processing plant, where it is extracted from the mining solution by passing it through a process similar in principle to a home water softener.
More than 70 percent of uranium production in the U.S. and 13 percent of worldwide production is through the ISL process.
Claim: ISL mining is a highly dangerous activity.
Response: ISL mining is a controlled process that is widely used in the mining of uranium world-wide. It is less environmentally intrusive than any other form of mining and is used to mine a number of other minerals including copper and iron. It is ideally-suited and is the preferred choice for deposits with Beverley's characteristics. It is less visually intrusive than open cut or underground mines and the release of radon gas is much lower than in open cut or underground mines. Health issues for workers are minimised and rehabilitation of ISL mines and plants is quite a simple process.
Claim: ISL mining is highly problematic and has failed in the past.
Response: For deposits such as Beverley, it is the environmentally preferred option. ISL mining has a history of safe, environmentally sensitive operation world wide for many years.
Claim: Controlling the mining solution is difficult.
Response: The ISL process has been established through many years of successful operation of ISL mines worldwide. The flow of liquids is controlled by extracting water at a slightly greater rate than injection. This creates a zone of depression around the wellfield, causing groundwater beyond the mine zone to flow into the wellfield. An extensive pattern of monitor wells in and around the mine zone enables movement of fluids in the aquifer to be observed at all times.
The wellfield is managed by increasing or reducing the amount of extraction as required to maintain a flow of groundwater into the mining zone. Migration of mining solutions beyond the mining zone is prevented by increasing the rate of extraction. The same management practices are used at ISL mines in the U.S. to control the flow of solution.
Claim: The process involves injecting a corrosive, highly acidic solution into the ground.
Response: The process involves increasing the oxygen content and changing the pH level of the groundwater in the orebody to around 2.0 to 3.0, which makes it about as acidic as Coca Cola (2.5), orange juice (2.0 to 2.5) or red wine (2.8 to 3.8).
Claim: The process involves deliberately contaminating the groundwater with radioactivity.
Response: It is mischievous to suggest that the ISL process involves injecting radioactive material into the orebody. The orebody is contained in a radioactive aquifer. Any radioactive material injected into it came from the aquifer in the first place.
Once mining ceases, the groundwater returns to pre-mining radium levels within a period of months and 80 percent to 90 percent of the uranium will have been removed.
Claim: Dangerous liquid waste will be pumped into the ground.
Response: It is the same liquid that came out of the ground in the first place - less the uranium and with a weak acid solution added. When mining ceases, the acid level will neutralise over time.
Claim: The waste material to be injected into the aquifer contains heavy metals such as selenium and molybdenum.
Response: These metals occur in the aquifer naturally. During the mining process they are mobilised, but only in small amounts when compared with the movement of uranium. Because the ISL process is essentially a closed loop operation, these metals are simply returned to the aquifer they came from in the first place.
Once mining and the addition of oxidant ceases, they precipitate back into solid form, precisely as they were before mining began.
Claim: ISL projects have been blocked in the past on health, safety and environmental grounds.
Response: The Beverley and Honeymoon uranium projects were abandoned in the early 1980s because of the then Labor Government's Three Mines uranium policy, not because of health, safety or environmental concerns.
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