Uranium Mining in Gogi, Karnataka: A Report

Gogi: Central Ambitions and State Responsibilities

Arati Chokshi

Background:

Responding to India’s aggressive nuclear expansionist policy, and the resulting high demands on the necessary fuel supply of Uranium-235, Uranium Corporation India Limited, UCIL, in 2007, initiated a project for mining Uranium in Gogi village, of Yadgir District in Karnataka. Gogi lies in the Bhima river basin and is primarily an agricultural area with subsistence farming and food production. It is irrigated by the Shahapur Branch Canal and has availability of ground water supply – although the increasing population in the region (22% growth in the last decade) has put enormous stress, especially on the water resources of the region.

The UCIL project was based on earlier exploratory studies for Uranium which indicated that Gogi contained 4000 tonnes of relatively high grade uranium of 0.1% – richer than any ore previously mined in the nation. The UCIL proposed to mine this Uranium using a shaft mine 5 m in diameter, reaching 220m deep, over a period of 15 years. At a processing unit, proposed to be set up in nearby Diggi, the ore would be milled and further processed using alkali leaching method, most suitable for Uranium extraction in this particular ore composition; the resultant sodium diuranate or yellow cake would finally be transported 250 km to Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad for further processing.

To carry out this project, UCIL wants to acquire 238 acres of land, needs 1 million litres of water per day and 8100 KVA of power from Gulbarga electricity supply company to run its operations. It will employ about 361 people for this project (http://www.deccanherald.com/content/203318/state-gives-green-signal-uranium.html)

Dangers of Uranium Mining:

While all large mining projects are damaging to ecologies and man, Uranium mining is particularly hazardous on following counts:

• The concentration of Uranium in ores is usually around 0.1% – ie Uranium is rare. For comparison, mining iron becomes economical around 25%Fe. Thus, a vast amount of rock has to be mined for uranium extraction.

• This ore is radioactive. Even after extracting uranium, the remnant material (called tailings) retain 85% radioactivity of the original sample. Containment and managing large tailing ponds poses one of the most severe problems in Uranium mining. The radio-toxicity of the material will last tens of thousands of years and pose a severe health hazard. No solution is available globally for dealing with such hazardous waste – usually the approach is only to diminish the effects by proper containments – these too have not been tested over the lifetime of waste products. Leaching into soils and aquifers poses a real danger.