Wednesday, April 14, 2010: 3:10 p.m.
Continental A (Westin Tabor Center, Denver)
Very complicated state of the environment in Ukraine is now at uranium mines of largest European and one of the largest all over the world uranium ore province which is places at the Kryvyi Rig basin. The main objectives of this work was to evaluate (1) the regional extent and significance of metals contamination in environmental media in this region and (2) the potential use and effectiveness of innovative remediation technologies, in particular semi-passive permeable reactive barriers for metals contamination in this site.
It was shown that from the point of view of geological structure of the areas investigated, hydrogeological features and from estimation of the groundwater contamination sources and taking into account changing ongoing processes, the greatest necessity for remediation measures are contaminated places near tailings storage facilities in Zhovty Vody city.
Zhovty Vody has a major importance for national economy as it is the unique Ukrainian center where uranium ore milling and primary enriching is made, that provides fuel for national Atomic Industry. 11 industrial enterprises of different branches are located in the city. Formation of basic sources of the environmental contamination is related to the production activity of state enterprise for uranium ore mining and milling, which existed since 1950s and performed uranium ore underground mining and processing by hydrometallurgical method. It was established that the level of the population morbidity in these districts exceeds the averaged indexes in the region.
By geological structure, the district of Zhovty Vody is situated within the Ukrainian Shield. Crystalline basement is split by regional Krivyi Rig – Kremenchuck deep fault of northeastern direction that is complicated with smaller faults of different directions.
The experimental comparison of different remediation technologies had shown the greatest effectiveness of improved permeable reactive barriers with stabilization techniques for groundwater purification at Ukrainian uranium mine district.
It was shown that from the point of view of geological structure of the areas investigated, hydrogeological features and from estimation of the groundwater contamination sources and taking into account changing ongoing processes, the greatest necessity for remediation measures are contaminated places near tailings storage facilities in Zhovty Vody city.
Zhovty Vody has a major importance for national economy as it is the unique Ukrainian center where uranium ore milling and primary enriching is made, that provides fuel for national Atomic Industry. 11 industrial enterprises of different branches are located in the city. Formation of basic sources of the environmental contamination is related to the production activity of state enterprise for uranium ore mining and milling, which existed since 1950s and performed uranium ore underground mining and processing by hydrometallurgical method. It was established that the level of the population morbidity in these districts exceeds the averaged indexes in the region.
By geological structure, the district of Zhovty Vody is situated within the Ukrainian Shield. Crystalline basement is split by regional Krivyi Rig – Kremenchuck deep fault of northeastern direction that is complicated with smaller faults of different directions.
The experimental comparison of different remediation technologies had shown the greatest effectiveness of improved permeable reactive barriers with stabilization techniques for groundwater purification at Ukrainian uranium mine district.