The Current Radiation Situation of the Territory Near the Uranium Mining Enterprises of Northern Kazakhstan

Abstract

Radioactive waste near the industrial zones of the mining administrations of the Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine, which occupy vast areas of the territory, remains an urgent problem for Northern Kazakhstan. For example, waste rock processing referred to as “tailings”, is contained in huge industrial basin-lakes, called tailings. Each liter of jelly-like “pulp”, in addition to carbonates of arsenic, molybdenum, phosphorus and other chemical elements, contains up to 1 g of active uranium, as well as radium and thorium. As a result of the pedestrian gamma survey, the authors identified a locally contaminated area in the northwest direction from the sanitary protection zone of the tailing dump of the Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine. It has been established that, according to the indices of radioactive contamination of water bodies, the stagnant water bodies of the Manybaiskiy and Sulukamysskiy thalweg located behind the sanitary protection zone of the tailing dump of the Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine are classified as contaminated.