1) Do General Atomics have any experience in uranium mining ?
2) Have there been any trials of uranium mining at Beverley previously ?
3) What are the groundwater resources of the Beverley region ?
4) What are the current levels of salinity and radionuclides of the groundwater of the different aquifers ?
5) What are the current anthropgoenic uses of the different groundwater systems ?
6) Where are the eventual discharge areas of the different groundwater systems ?
7) How long does it take for groundwater of the different aquifers to emerge at these discharge zones ?
8) What are the important environmental uses of the groundwater ? Is this likely to change in the near future ?
9) Is the Beverley orebody aquifer completely isolated from surrounding groundwater systems and therefore the wider environment ? If so, how can this be guaranteed for perpetuity ?
10) What guarnatees can be made that the Beverley aquifer will remained unused by future generations ?
11) Is Heathgate currently mining uranium at Beverley ?
12) Is a sulphuric acid leaching chemistry used elsewhere in the world ?
13) Why has a sulphuric acid leaching chemistry been abandoned elsewhere around the world ?
14) What are the likely economic benefits from the Beverley Uranium Project ?
15) How many jobs are involved in the full scale operation of the Beverley Project ?
16) How does Heathgate plan to manage their toxic waste water solutions from pumping and uranium processing ?
17) What are the long term plans for solid radioactive wastes from the Beverley Project ?
18) Do the Adnyamathanha support the Beverley Project ?
19) Which government department is the controlling regulatory body ?
20) Is the current field trial regulated under the Environment Protection Act (SA) ?
21) What are the conditions that have been imposed on the current field trial at Beverley ?
22) Is there any independent monitoring currently being undertaken (and if so, by whom) ?
1) Do General Atomics have any experience in uranium mining ?
No (1). The purchase of the Beverley deposit in 1990 was their first venture into this part of the nuclear cycle. General Atomics has had some involvement in key desposits in the USA, such as the Mount Taylor deposit in New Mexico. The proposed development of Beverley, through their Australian subsidiary Heathgate Resources, is General Atomics' first attempt to begin development of a uranium mine.2) Have there been any trials of uranium mining at Beverley previously ?Thus General Atomics have no experience whatsoever with uranium mining, and no direct experience at all with the In Situ Leaching technique being trialled at Beverley.
No. The first stage of development in the early 1970s only involved intensive exploration to define the limits of the orebody and laboratory studies on core samples. The second stage of development in the early 1980s involved further exploration and testing and some limited hydrogeological work, but no field trials of In Situ Leaching were performed.3) What are the groundwater resources of the Beverley region ?
There are four major geological formations where groundwater can be found :4) What are the current levels of salinity and radionuclides of these groundwater resources ?
the Great Artesian Basin at about 300 to 400 m (the Cadna-Owie Formation aquifer);
within the sands of the Namba Formation at moderate depths between 100 to 200 m. The Beverley uranium deposit occurs within one of these aquifers, an old sand-filled palaeochannel (river bed);
the regional Eyre Formation - at depths between 250 to 300 m. This is not present locally at the Beverley site, but is thought to be an important discharge zone from the GAB via the Mt Jacob fault;
at shallow depths from 10 to 90 m, within sand units of the Willawortina Formation.
Regional Groundwater Flows (Fig. 4-4) (2) - click for larger version (~ 232 kb).
Summarised from (2) and (3). All values in mg/l (4) unless specified (pH in pH units).
Values presented exclude those of Ker (1966) as in the dEIS. (3)
Great Artesian Basin Aquifer - Trace Elements and Radionuclides (ug/l) (3)
Beverley Orebody (Namba Formation) Aquifer - Major Elements (3)
Beverley Orebody (Namba Formation) Aquifer - Trace Elements and Radionuclides (ug/l) (3)
@ - only one sample analysed for Rn.
- it is assumed that the units in the dEIS are ug/l and not mg/l as suggested.
Willawortina Formation (shallow) Groundwater Quality - Major Elements (3)
# - 25 mg/l excluding the outlier of 480 mg/l.
5) What are the current anthropgoenic uses of the different groundwater systems ?
The only bore tapping the GAB in the region is the camp bore for the Beverley project. It extracts water for potable water supply to the mine site camp as well as for fresh solutions used in the process plant. Current extraction for the small field trial is of the order of 1,000 l/day, with full scale extraction estimated to be 1 Ml/day.The Great Artesian Basin Currently there are no users of the Beverley aquifer except Heathgate for their field trial of In Situ Leach (ISL) uranium mining.Namba Formation Aquifers (including the Beverley aquifer) There are numerous pastoral bores in the surrounding region which tap the different sandy aquifers of the Willawortina Formation.Willawortina Formation Aquifers
6) Where are the eventual discharge areas of the different groundwater systems ?
The numerous aquifers all discharge eastwards toward Lake Frome (see the above diagram, Q 3). The Namba and Willawortina Formation aquifers discharge near the surface sediments on the western edge of Lake Frome and the water is thereby evaporated. The Great Artesian Basin groundwater discharges at mound springs along the major fault line running north-south through Lake Frome.
7) How long does it take for groundwater of the different aquifers to emerge at these discharge zones ?
Although the flow rates through the different aquifers will vary quite considerably, the general length of time it will take for groundwater to reach the evaporative basin of Lake Frome is of the order of 20,000 to over 100,000 years (3).
8) What are the important environmental uses of the groundwater ? Is this likely to change in the near future ?
The main environmental use of the groundwater is the support of the pastoral industry and the supply of water to ecosystems near Lake Frome.As new technologies emerge for the treatment of water, or the costs of a pastoral business change, or even as climatic conditions change (as predicted by the Greenhouse Effect), it is reasonable to expect that there will be more incentive to look to groundwater as a source of usable water. Hence the Precautionary Principle would state that the current quality of the groundwater should at the very least be maintained.
9) Is the Beverley orebody aquifer completely isolated from surrounding groundwater systems and therefore the wider environment ? If so, how can this be guaranteed for perpetuity ?
-
No groundwater system can ever be reasonably considered to be "isolated", since :
- the groundwater must have travelled from somewhere to be in that aquifer in the first place;
- every soil or rock has a permeability - even clays have a permeability of the order of 0.1 mm/day.
- old exploration boreholes were never constructed to modern standards and would not necessarily have caved in;
- the extent of the aquifer 500 m north and 500 m south of the orebody is unknown;
- the current boreholes that have been drilled for the Field Leach Trial could possibly leak, allowing escape of toxic solutions;
- the mechanism of recharge to the Beverley aquifer is still unknown.
The Beverley orebody aquifer cannot be guaranteed to be completely isolated.
How can one argue something is isolated if you do not even know the full extent of the aquifer ?
The experience in the USA is that it is consistenty reported that numerous ISL operations have some leaking boreholes (refer Mudd, 1998).
10) What guarnatees can be made that the Beverley aquifer will remained unused and isolated from future generations ?
For the reasons outlined above, changes in technology, demand for water and also human error, there can be no guarantee that the aquifer will remain unused nor isolated, especially if an unsuspecting pastoralist at sometime in the future plans to drill a borehole into the deeper GAB aquifer and first drills through the then-toxic Beverley aquifer first due to a lack of signs or information.
11) Is Heathgate currently mining uranium at Beverley ?
Yes. The current so-called "evalutaion trials" are unequivocally uranium mining. It is estimated that approximately 15 tonnes of uranium will be produced by Heathgate, which will remain the property of the SA government (since there is no export licence).12) Is a sulphuric acid leaching chemistry used elsewhere in the world ?The process of extracting an element or mineral from an orebody is, according to any standard dictionary definition, "mining".
The only areas in the world that currently use a sulphuric acid leaching chemistry are those in the former Eastern European countries and the CIS. Acid leaching was trialled in the USA in the 70's but was abandoned by the industry and the regulators in the early 80's due to the many technical difficulties and environmental problems encountered, making the use of acid solutions unprofitable.13) Why has a sulphuric acid leaching chemistry been abandoned elsewhere around the world, especially the United States ?
The principal reasons why sulphuric acid has been either avoided, abandoned or outlwed elsewhere in the world is that it is technically more difficult and thus costly to restore the quality of the groundwater after mining has taken place.14) What are the likely economic benefits from the Beverley Uranium Project ?This is because the acidic conditions mobilises quite high concentrations of numerous heavy metals as well as radionuclides. Ensuring that all have returned to pre-mining conditions involved lengthy and expensive restoration programs.
The early trials of sulphuric acid leaching in the United States were conducted in Wyoming and Texas. Many of those sites were not restored to their original condition and so commercial mines were not undertaken. Both the industry and the regulators prefer the use of alkaline or bicarbonate leaching chemistry (typically carbon dioxide and oxygen), which although it gives a slower and less complete extraction of uranium, it avoids many of the above problems and thus minimises total costs. All currently operating ISL mines in the USA use alkaline leaching chemistry and restore groundwater after ISL mining.
The15) How many jobs are involved in the full scale operation of the Beverley Project ?
The16) How does Heathgate plan to manage their toxic waste water solutions from pumping and uranium processing ?
The17) What are the long term plans for solid radioactive wastes from the Beverley Project ?
The18) What is the broad Adnyamathanha community position regarding the Beverley Project ?
The19) Which government department is the controlling regulatory body ?
The20) Is the current field trial regulated under the Environment Protection Act (SA) ?
The21) What are the conditions that have been imposed on the current field trial at Beverley ?
The22) Is there any independent monitoring currently being undertaken (and if so, by whom) ?
The
References :
2 - Heathgate Resources Pty Ltd, (1997a), Declaration of Environmental Factors (D.E.F.) in Support of a Proposal to Undertake a Field Trial of Uranium Extraction by In Situ Leaching at Beverley, South Australia; Prepared by Heathgate Resources Pty. Ltd., September 5, 1997.
3 - South Australian Uranium Corporation (SAUC), (1982), Beverley Project : Draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS), July 1982.
4 - mg/l is milligrams per litre (10-3g/l); ug/l is micrograms per litre (10-6g/l).
5 - Australian Water Quality Guidelines, (reference pending).
2 - Heathgate Resources Pty Ltd, (1997b), Supplement to Declaration of Environmental Factors (D.E.F.) in Support of a Proposal to Undertake a Field Trial of Uranium Extraction by In Situ Leaching at Beverley, South Australia - Pumping Test; Prepared by Heathgate Resources Pty. Ltd., September 25, 1997.
6 - Reference - pages 263-264, Appelo & Postma (1993), "Geochemistry, Groundwater & Pollution", A. A. Balkema, Netherlands.
7 - Parliament of South Australia; Environment, Resources and Development Committee - Roxby Downs Water Leakage; Nineteenth Report of the Committee, April 1996.
Page developed by Gavin Mudd for SEA-US Inc.
Page last updated July 19, 1998.
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