I think that one of the concerns rightly expressed by the population concerns the long-term management of mine tailings. Every mine, including uranium mines and metal mines in general, generates tailings in large quantities. Typically, metal and uranium ore—depending on the deposit—often leaves contaminants or toxic elements, such as heavy metals, which must be managed. There is always the risk of acidification or acid mining drainage to be considered.
But uranium mines pose an additional challenge, which is that of managing the tailings, which contain significant radioactive material, like thorium and radium, which is left behind. The company takes the uranium, the marketable part that it has to process and send to markets in the south and elsewhere. But then it leaves behind millions of tonnes of mine tailings containing radioactive material.
At present, the best means available to us for managing these tailings are civil engineering infrastructures, such as dikes, that must retain the tailings not just for 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, but even centuries. But it's not true. And it's not just us who are saying so.