The discovery of radioactive scrap metal in the Free State could be a sign of widespread contamination, writes Ferial Haffajee
RADIOACTIVE contamination way above international safety limits has been uncovered in the heart of the Free State’s gold fields.
The Council for Nuclear Safety (CNS) said this week it had detected high levels of radiation in two steel tanks sold by Randgold’s Harmony gold mine, and uranium spillage on the site of the scrap metal dealer that bought them. The council has ordered the tanks back to Harmony’s site, and told the mine to clear up the spillage around the premises of the dealer, Almo Engineering, in the Free State town of Virginia.
The incident last month highlights the danger posed by the disused uranium processing plants that dot the country’s gold mining districts. The full extent of the danger will only be made known at the end of next year , the deadline for an industry self-assessment – to be given to the CNS – on its management of radioactive waste and the potential threat to communities.
The industry also warned this week that the lack of adequate storage facilities meant that a growing amount of radioactive waste was piling up at mines.
The Harmony tanks were sold to Almo in June after lying dormant for 12 years in the mine’s mothballed uranium plant. One of the tanks was subsequently sold to nearby gold mine Oryx, which raised the alarm.
A CNS inspection of the tanks found the contamination far exceeded the country’s safety limits. The CNS also found uranium spillage at Almo.
”We ordered Harmony to remove the tanks and clear the spillage,” says CNS manager Sietse van der Woude.
A by-product of gold production, uranium, a radioactive compound, was previously sold to the local nuclear industry. But local uranium processing has slowed to a trickle because imports are cheaper and the apartheid nuclear bomb industry has lost its currency. Just three of the 22 mines that ran uranium-processing plants still operate the units. Harmony is one of 19 mines that have disused plants and continue to store equipment.
Such equipment could be contaminated, posing the risk of radiation-linked diseases for workers and residents of surrounding mining towns.
The CNS has evidence of 40 such potentially contaminated sites around the country. Documents in the Mail & Guardian’s possession quote a former senior official at the Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) saying that radioactivity measurements at Harmony and on the surrounding gold fields are far beyond international safety limits.
The tanks found this week could be the tip of the iceberg because contamination spreads easily. ”Radioactivity leaches from one place to another,” the AEC official said. ”Even the concrete that they have built the structures with is contaminated.”
Harmony said this week that recent readings showed that some areas were above internationally acceptable levels for radiation. Ironically, the mine is regarded as one of the more diligent in the disposal of radioactive waste. The mine has now imposed strict regulations.
”Nothing, not even a chair, may leave the mine without a radiation clearance,” said Loodewyk Roux, the mine manager in charge of environmental health and safety. He said he was convinced there was no danger to the public from the spillage and contamination.
A representative on the mine from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research added that: ”generally Harmony is under the limits”. But the true picture would only emerge next year, when the industry’s full assessment of the dangers posed by stored plant would be presented.
Part of the concern is that the mines that once processed uranium regulated themselves until last year, when the CNS took over as watchdog.
Until then, the disposal of radioactive waste by both industry and government was often slip-shod, resulting in high contamination levels.
The dangers of this can never be accurately measured because there has been little rigorous medical surveillance of affected workers and nearby communities.
Instead, the uranium producing industry is being regulated retrospectively. The CNS is awaiting the industry’s formal assessment.
IN the meantime, the council, which falls under the ambit of the Department of Mineral and Energy , remains upbeat. ”The demolition of uranium plants is well-controlled,” says CNS general manager Jeff Leaver. ”There has been a moratorium on the sale of contaminated scrap, except to licensed scrap-dealers, and the likelihood of damage is infinitesimally small.”
But the fact that contaminated scrap has been found after the moratorium and reports this week of R2-million worth of uranium allegedly offered for sale to a Johannesburg scrap dealer means leakage and potential contamination may be higher than the authorities believe.
The mining industry this week hit back at the CNS, saying it was not helping to find means to dispose of radioactive waste.
Vaalputs, the country’s biggest nuclear waste disposal site, is currently unable to take new shipments because of a moratorium imposed last September after leaks were discovered.
”There is now a growing number of drums and bags of material sitting on mines indefinitely, inviting the possibility of someone somewhere receiving an accidental radiation exposure,” says the Chamber of Mines’ assistant technology adviser, Dennis Wymer.
He also said the CNS was dragging its feet on approving industry plans, which the mines would fund, to clean uranium scrapyards.
Harmony’s management said that individuals would have had to stand by the tanks or the uranium spill for 555 hours before safe levels of radiation exposure were exceeded.
Miners at Harmony are now medically surveyed in line with the rigorous standards set down by the CNS, but that hasn’t always been the case.
In other countries, workers exposed to radioactive substances like uranium have displayed higher than average levels of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, tuberculosis and kidney damage. But the Chamber of Mines says a decade-long study of the incidence of cancer among mineworkers ”has not confirmed any malignancy related to work exposure”.
In South Africa, there has been no specific tracking of workers exposed to radiation, either during their work years or after they leave the mines, to assess the long-term impact on their health. Such studies are common in mining communities in developed countries, though the remaining 200 South African miners who work directly with uranium are now more carefully monitored.
There has also been little work done in mining communities. The chamber says residents are no more exposed to radiation than the general public. But estimates of the health risks linked to radiation exposure grow every day.
In one of the few studies available on uranium miners in Africa, Greg Dropkin and David Clark write in the book Past Exposure: ”Most cancers take at least 15 to 20 years to appear after radiation exposure … nearly 46 years after the atomic bombing of Japan, new cancer cases are appearing among survivors”.