Abstract
As the demand for energy grows steadily and fossil fuels are depleted gradually, nuclear power will continue to play an important role in meeting energy needs in the future. Uranium, as the fuel for nuclear power generation, has experienced the increase in production in recent years. Acid in situ leach uranium mining is an effective and popular technique to extract uranium without exposure of workers to radioactive ore deposits. Despite this advantage, this technique causes extremely high concentrations of contaminants in confined aquifers after mining is completed. These contaminants will undergo natural attenuation while migrating downgradient with regional groundwater. Mounting concerns have been raised regarding widespread groundwater contamination due to concentrations of contaminants and lack of published studies for comparison. In this study, the fate of various contaminants was examined to infer the extent of natural attenuation in a confined aquifer in northwest China. Results indicate the efficiency of natural attenuation in the confined aquifer. In addition, the contaminant plume migrated much slower than regional groundwater. The dual-domain theory has been invoked to aid in the interpretation of the decoupling of the plume migration with the regional groundwater flow. This study also implies that widespread contamination in confined aquifers is more likely to be caused by external factors (e.g., mechanical failure, human errors) than post-mining spreading of contaminants. To be always safe, strict monitoring schemes must still be established and operated.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41202182), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB10030601) and State Key Laboratory for Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology (Grant No. SKLCRSM12KFA02). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. The authors would like to thank James McCallum for improving the English quality of the manuscript. We also appreciate that Jinyuan Uranium Company provided the unpublished field investigation report (in Chinese), which is available upon request through the corresponding author.
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Dong, Y., Xie, Y., Li, G. et al. Efficient natural attenuation of acidic contaminants in a confined aquifer. Environ Earth Sci 75, 595 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-5389-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-5389-8