Atlas of Contaminated Sites

Notable case, Jaduguda, Jharkhand (Purbi Singhbhum), India

Jadugoda uranium mine and tailings ponds

जादूगोड़ा

Jadugoda in Jharkhand is India's first uranium mine, opened in 1967. The mill tailings, holding uranium, radium and the products of the decay chain, are stored in ponds next to villages, and the health effects are disputed between operator and residents.

Phytoremediation

Status
Contained
Activity
since 1967
People affected
35,0001
Media
soil, surface water, sediment, air, living organisms
Kind of site
mining, nuclear
  1. People affected. People living within 5 km of the mines, according to a source quoted by Wikipedia; year not given.

Contaminants

Metals

Radionuclides

Status

Contained

The mine and mill are operating, run by the state company UCIL; according to Wikipedia mining was suspended in 2014 over a forest-land dispute, with resumption expected in 2017. The tailings are held in ponds; exhausted ones have been capped with 30 cm of soil (Soni and Singh 2011). The published measurements come largely from researchers of India's Department of Atomic Energy.

Story

The deposit was discovered in 1951 and the underground mine began operating in 1967. According to Wikipedia the ore grade is 0.065%, the mill processes 2,190 tonnes of it a day and the mine supplies up to a quarter of the raw material for India's reactors. The concentrate is shipped to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad.

What is left after uranium extraction is tailings, which contain uranium-238 and its decay products, radium among them, and are discharged into settling ponds. The typical problems of such deposits are radon emission, wind-blown dust and leaching. Above the tailings surface the gamma dose rate ranges from 0.8 to 3.3 µGy/h and radon in air averages 30 and 23 Bq/m³ over ponds I and II, falling to local background at the edges; in nearby groundwater uranium and radium-226 are close to the regional average (Tripathi et al. 2008).

Aquatic plants in the streams that receive the treated effluent accumulate uranium, radium-226 and polonium-210 (Jha et al. 2010, 2013, 2016). Wikipedia reports, from press and campaign sources, that about 35,000 people live within 5 km of the mines and that residents report birth deformities and illness; the company rejects the allegations.

Timeline

  1. 1951The deposit is discovered (Wikipedia).
  2. 1967India's first uranium mine begins operating.
  3. 2008The assessment of environmental radioactivity around mine, mill and ponds is published.
  4. 2011The plant consolidation trials on the capped ponds are published.
  5. 2014Mining suspended over a forest-land dispute (Wikipedia).

Health

Tripathi and colleagues (2011) estimate an average dose of 2.5 mSv a year from all pathways for people in the villages around the complex, about half of it from inhaling radon and its progeny and 3% from ingestion. No independent epidemiological study was opened; the reports of deformities relayed by Wikipedia come from press investigations.

Remediation

  1. —cappingCapping of the exhausted tailings ponds with 30 cm of soil (Soni and Singh 2011).

Plants and fungi at this site

PhytoremediationField scale

Jatropha gossypifolia, Furcraea foetida, Saccharum spontaneum, Pogostemon benghalense

Phytostabilisation of the capped ponds: seven native species of forest origin, chosen for having no local use and low uranium uptake, were grown for two years both on the pond and off site. The abstract names four of the seven species.

Outcome Uranium decreased in the order tailings > cover soil > roots > shoots. In Jatropha gossypifolia and Furcraea foetida it was below the detection limit; Saccharum spontaneum and Pogostemon benghalense took up more.

PhytoremediationProposed

Pistia sp., Jussiaea sp.

A survey, not a trial: uranium was measured in algae, floating plants and rooted plants in the streams and ponds in and around the tailings area. The authors point to filamentous algae, Jussiaea and Pistia as candidates for phytoremediation of streams receiving the effluent.

Outcome Uranium in filamentous algae correlated with that in water (r = 0.86) and in rooted plants with that in the substrate (r = 0.88).

From the literature

Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.

Plants

Fungi

The rest are on the contaminant pages.

Nearby

Notable case, Sukinda (Jajpur district), India

Sukinda chromite valley

193 km

  • Hexavalent chromium
  • Chromium
  • Nickel
  • Manganese

Phytoremediation

Sources

  1. Tripathi R.M. et al. Assessment of environmental radioactivity at uranium mining, processing and tailings management facility at Jaduguda, India, Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 2008
  2. Tripathi R.M. et al. Radiation dose to members of public residing around uranium mining complex, Jaduguda, Jharkhand, India, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 2011
  3. Jha V.N. et al. Uptake of uranium by aquatic plants growing in fresh water ecosystem around uranium mill tailings pond at Jaduguda, India, Science of the Total Environment, 2016
  4. Soni P., Singh L. Ecotechnological approach for consolidation of uranium tailings, Journal of Environmental Science & Engineering, 2011
  5. Jaduguda uranium mine, Wikipedia, 2026

Draft compiled from public sources, not yet reviewed.