Thursday, January 30, 2025

January 16, 2025

A Huge Freshwater Aquifer In Southern Africa Is Under Threat From Uranium Mining

We're not geologists, but mining for uranium around a massive aquifer and turning the precious little water we have into radioactive sludge sounds like the worst kind of idea.

[Image: Wikicomons]

A massive freshwater aquifer the size of Austria is under threat after the Namibian government awarded uranium prospecting licences to several mining companies sniffing around the aquifer system.

The Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System stretches about 87,000km² across Namibia, South Africa and Botswana and supplies around 50,000 people in several towns with water.

While several other mining companies have already been given the right to prospect for rare earth metals in the aquifer groundwater scientists say that if the mining goes ahead, the aquifer will become so contaminated that the people dependent on it might face the possibility of cancer, kidney damage, bone fragility, cardiovascular issues and respiratory problems.

The Namibian government has received applications for uranium mining licenses from at least seven companies and has awarded 35 ‘uranium exploration permits’ covering 3.3 million hectares of Namibian territory.

Location of the Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System (in orange) and the Orange-Senqu River Basin (in green) in southern Africa [Image: International Water Law]
Despite the threat to the water system, Namibia’s minister of agriculture, water and land reform, Carl-Hermann Schlettwein, said in June 2024 that his priority was to make sure that the Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System would not be polluted and would continue to supply clean water in future.

Ensuring the aquifer is not polluted will be a tough one, considering the dangers of uranium leach mining and rare earth heavy metal mining. Research has found that mine effluents and acid mine drainage can seep into nearby water resources, such as in the case of the boreal zone in Canada, where 80% of mining for ferrous metals, precious metals, base metals, oil and gas, and precious gems takes place.

So-called rehabilitation projects by mining companies have also proven problematic as it is nearly impossible to determine how much each mine contributed to the damage and what percentage of the cleanup each mine is responsible for.

Mining for uranium around an aquifer is likely the worst kind of idea. Uranium mines drill thousands of boreholes that can leach radioactive fluids into the water as they inject Sulphuric acid into the uranium-rich rock around the aquifer to dissolve it. The mines keep on pumping this into the rock until the uranium is depleted, at which point they pack up and move on.

Companies like Uranium One however believe that the natural minerals in the bedrock will ‘spontaneously neuteralise’ the Sulphuric acid, so they would not have to rehabilitate the targetted areas. This process has however not been proven yet.

The Conversation notes that Africa needs to profit from its wealth of mineral resources – but not to the detriment of African people in the long term. The publication believes that there have not been nearly enough studies done to determine what uranium mining could do to the Stampriet aquifer system, and the Namibian, South African and Botswana governments must cooperate to protect the aquifer system from contamination.

Sure, developing countries need money from mining, but turning the precious little water we have into radioactive sludge is not worth it.

[Source: The Conversation]