Nuclear Energy

area due to uranium mining. cdlxxxii Its website claims that “the diseases prevalent in the villages
around UCIL workings are not due to radiation but attributed to malnutrition, malaria and
unhygienic living conditions etc.” cdlxxxiii
Shocking carelessness
The reality is the exact opposite. The mining practices followed by UCIL completely disregard
the fact that uranium is radioactive, and that the waste from the mines continuously emits the highly
carcinogenic radon-222 gas, and the mill tailings contain uranium decay products like the highly
radioactive thorium-230 with a half-life of 80,000 years (see Chapter 3 for a more detailed
discussion). It callously dumps the waste from the mines in the open cdlxxxiv , and the mill waste in
unlined tailing ponds cdlxxxv – seepage from which will obviously contaminate the soil and
groundwater. The three tailing ponds are spread over an area of 100 acres and are estimated to
contain tens of millions of tons of radioactive waste. cdlxxxvi
The corporation has not taken the slightest precautions to protect the health of the people living
in the vicinity of the mines from radiation release. Its utter callousness and unconcern is eloquently
brought out in numerous surveys of the area around the mines by independent experts, including:
field trips in 2001 and 2002 by Professor Hiroaki Koide from the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto
University, Japan cdlxxxvii; surveys by the well known physicist Dr. Surendra Gadekar and medic Dr.
Sanghamitra Gadekar in 2000 and then again in 2005 cdlxxxviii; and the more recent survey by a team
of doctors from Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), the Indian chapter of 1985
Nobel Peace Prize recipient International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) cdlxxxix
in 2008. They found that:
� The uranium mines were located on adivasi land. The adivasis were simply removed from
their lands by force, but no attempt was made to resettle them at a suitable distance from the
mines. Consequently, they continue living on the edge of the mines. Without explaining the
risks, they were offered employment as uranium miners, which they willingly accepted as
they had been deprived of their lands. They were thus doubly exposed to radiation: as
miners, and along with their families, to the radioactive dust blowing from the tailing ponds.
� No safety measures have been taken by the company. The waste is carelessly dumped in the
open; the ore is transported to the mills in uncovered dumpers; the tailing ponds are not
fenced off properly, and people freely walk across them, not knowing that they are thus
getting exposed to gamma radiation.
� The company has also supplied waste rock from the mines for construction of roads and
houses!
� It is suspected that radioactive wastes from various parts of India have been abandoned in
these tailing ponds. This is suspected because the tailing pond in Jadugoda has a high
concentration of Cesium-137, one of the fission products of Uranium which is found in the
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