The Uranium issue has come to haunt us yet again. Germane to the debate is that uranium as nuclear scientist Dr Gordon Edwards says is ‘the deadliest metal on earth,’ as is borne out by scientific evidence. Edwards says all uranium ends up as either nuclear weapons or highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. In the process of mining uranium naturally occurring radioactive substances, which are among the most harmful materials known to science are liberated. Scientists today believe that nuclear technology never was and never will be a solution to any human problem and that there are alternative ways of generating electricity through water power, wind power, geothermal power, etc. If uranium is to be used for power generation then is solar power not a better and safer option?
Scientists who take a neutral position on the issue of uranium mining caution that the gravest danger arises from the tailings that remain after uranium ore is extracted from the ground. What is left behind is a finely pulverized material, like fine sand which is the uranium tailing. As the person who first discovered radioactivity – Marie Curie observed that 85 percent of the radioactivity in the ore remains behind in that crushed rock. The effective half-life of this radioactivity is 80,000 years which means that in 80,000 years there will be half as much radioactivity in these tailings as there is today. Since these tailings are left on the surface of the earth, they are blown about by the wind and are washed by the rain into the water systems.
As long as the tailings remain on the earth’s surface, they are continually generating radon gas which is eight times heavier than air, so it stays close to the ground and can travel 1,000 miles in just a few days in a light breeze. This dust is deposited on the vegetation and is ingested by animals, fish and plants thousands of miles away from where the uranium mining is done. The tailing ponds are actually pumping radioactivity into the environment for millennia. This is the hidden danger or uranium mining.
While many argue that humans are anyway exposed to radiation from different sources including from soil, construction materials etc., the point is that increasing radiation levels on this planet is exposing humans to grave risks. It is on this crucial point that the people of Meghalaya must resist the Central Government’s attempts through UCIL to revive the uranium mining project here.