Niger: worrying revelations about the radioactive pollution of Cominak

The Cominak uranium mine closed its activity in March 2021 (Illustration image).

© PIERRE VERDY/AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

According to the Commission for Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity (Criirad), the management of radioactive waste at Cominak, this uranium mine located 250 km from Agadez, in the north of the country, which closed in March 2021, threatens the environment of the site and in particular the groundwater which supplies the city of Arlit. 

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On the Cominak site, a subsidiary of the French Orano, 20 million tonnes of radioactive sludge are stored on the ground and in the open air in a waste dump.

These residues pollute the air, but also the subsoil, and therefore groundwater, alerts the Independent Research and Information Commission on Radioactivity (Criirad), which was able to consult the final report of

the site redevelopment project.

de la Cominak

, located in Arlit.

“ 

The company was forced to install special pumps to pump the contaminated water and send it back inside the site,

” explains Bruno Chareyron, nuclear physics engineer at Criirad. 

The problem is that in the Cominak file, we can read that this pumping could no longer be functional in a few decades and at that time, the contamination will move towards the drinking water catchment area, or even beyond. 

»

Watertight floor and clay sarcophagus

Cominak disputes this threat.

The mine ensures that the waste pile is on a naturally impermeable geological base.

By 2026, it must be covered by a clay sarcophagus two meters thick, thus reducing air and water contamination.

 These infiltrations, from the tailings heap, today the tests show us that they are drying up,

assures Mahaman Sani Abdoulaye, the general manager of Cominak

.

So the contents of significant chemical elements decrease over time.

Over the last ten years, the average as added doses for the surrounding populations has never exceeded the regulatory limit of one millisievert.

Government control will continue whether it is at the level of water, air and all the surrounding fauna. 

»

The dump covers 120 square kilometres.

For now, only 3% of this surface has been covered.

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