How dangerous is uranium?
Geologist applauds NBers quest to gather facts concerns rise over uranium prospecting
By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff
Published Monday March 31st, 2008
Appeared on page A1
Has all this talk about uranium exploration in southeastern New Brunswick got you worried about radiation?
Then wear sunscreen, says Charlie Jefferson.
That's because standing in the sun exposes you to far more radiation than standing next to any drill hole or uranium mine.
"You're in much greater danger of cancer from the sun, absolutely," Jefferson, considered Canada's leading authority on uranium exploration, said this week.
Recent exploration for uranium and the prospect it might one day be mined in southeastern New Brunswick has led to some public alarm here, just as it has in other parts of the country. A rapid rise in the cost of the metal has led to increased prospecting.
Moncton city council has made a resolution to ban uranium mining in the Turtle Creek watershed, the Times & Transcript has supported the city's position in an editorial and citizens have been complaining to anyone who will listen. Last night a coalition of various citizen and environmental groups even held a public meeting on the issue at Moncton's Capitol Theatre.
A geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, Jefferson applauded the news from Metro Moncton.
"These public meetings are good. You need to ask these questions," he said. Jefferson just hopes the talk shines more light than heat on the subject.
Despite the fear the word uranium can strike in the general public, it is little different from other base metals when it comes to mining. If you wouldn't want, say, a copper or zinc mine built around Metro Moncton, you likely wouldn't want a uranium mine either, but there's nothing about uranium mining that makes it any more threatening to the environment. Uranium in nature isn't even all that radioactive.
Meanwhile, "people don't realize there's radiation all around them," Jefferson said, adding people need to realize not all radiation is equal.
Take a scintillometer, a device that measures radioactivity, and drive to downtown Toronto where many buildings have granite facades. You'll get higher readings than you might find near uranium deposits. Yes, granite is radioactive too.
In fact, in a statement sure to startle many Moncton-area residents, UNB geologist Dr. David Lentz said this week the most significant radiation anomaly he has seen in New Brunswick is where granite is being quarried off Gorge Road. Lentz said Lutes Mountain rocks are four to five times more radioactive than most rocks in the province.
Before people start fleeing from the hills though, it's critical to note even this site is not radioactive to the extent we might picture, having been raised on tales of Pacific islands glowing from nuclear weapons testing. The gamma rays from the granite are too weak to penetrate the skin and don't represent any danger, said Dr. Lentz, who held a piece of granite to his arm as he explained this.
Two dangers that do exist from exploratory drilling are radon and radium. Radon is a gas, so though its gamma rays are also not capable of penetrating our skin, the gas can pose a serious health hazard when it gathers in our basements. Inhalation over time has an accumulative effect, but it dissipates easily into the air. Homeowners, especially in R-2000 homes, should frequently open basement windows and get their homes tested if they are concerned.
The idea that radon can be brought to the surface in a dangerous chimney effect because of exploratory drilling was dismissed. "The radon emitting from one drill hole is probably infinitessimal," Jefferson said. Meanwhile, if bringing radon to the surface through drilling was a concern, it would be whether the driller was looking for uranium or not. Nevertheless, few people get up in arms about drilling for water wells.
Speaking of water wells, there is concern dangerous amounts of naturally occurring radon or radium can find their way into them, regardless of whether anyone ever does any mineral exploration. The federal government has done extensive radon mapping of the entire nation and building codes across Canada vary to reflect some of these underground realities.
While exploratory drilling is done in search of profit for exploration companies, not as a public service, both scientists said the current exploration has potential to help landowners identify hazards they have been living with all along.
Another geologist consulted for this report said if he ever learned there was actually a high enough concentration of uranium under his home to justify commercial mining, he would want to know because of the radon gas that would naturally seep up through the earth, with or without human intervention.
That's not likely to happen around here though. All the geologists consulted for this story and previous published comments by employees of the Department of Natural Resources have suggested the chance of commercial uranium mining being done in New Brunswick ranges from one in 1,000 to one in 10,000.
A mining operation, if it did happen, wouldn't be like most of us would picture.
"In New Brunswick, you have disseminated uranium in sandstone in very low concentrations," Jefferson said. It would therefore be extracted using in-situ leaching, which uses a well field and hydrogeology to bring the uranium to the surface in solution and replace the solution with water. Within the wellfield area, there would, of course, be an effect on the hydrogeology beneath the wellfield. It would be done in a relatively confinced area on land bought by a mining company, not something done beneath homes far from a central site like you might find in other forms of mining.
Radium might be the biggest concern of uranium or any other exploration. Again, radium's gamma rays aren't a problem, says Lentz. "Radium on your skin does nothing, but ingesting it over time causes an accumulation that will cause leukemia and other problems for our white blood cells."
If a natural deposit of radium does get struck during drilling, straightforward technology could plug the hole.
The debate over uranium isn't likely to end any time soon. Most of us, even with reasonably good educations, find the search for the basic geology and chemistry concepts we learned in high school a long journey indeed. Even with access to top experts in the field, it takes time to re-learn much of what we think we know about uranium and radiation and the water table.
Without that access to experts, the journey is fraught with confusing detours and clouds of dust and travelled these days mostly on the Internet. There, one uranium industry lobby group touts how nuclear energy is "all-natural" like the sun, but ignores the fact none of us would want the surface of the sun in our backyards either.
On the other hand, several websites of the anti-uranium lobby over-emphasize sins of the industry that are more than a half-century old. Does the shameless exploitation of First Nations packers in the uranium exploration in the 1940s logically lead to the conclusion uranium mining in the 21st Century is reckless? The City of Moncton put its dump on a sensitive wetland and left it there for decades. Does that mean it would do it today?
A report by the B.C. College of Physicians that is critical of uranium mining and often cited by environmentalists was published almost three decades ago in 1980. It looked at a legacy that ran back decades before that. Are its findings still relevant?
While the Internet can provide some answers, it's tricky to decide which ones are true. That's why Charlie Jefferson emphasized this week it's time for the public to do what it can to get educated, time for them to look for opportunities to meet real experts.
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Eagles to land in Metro Aug. 2
Opening acts for Magnetic Hill show to be unveiled today
By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff
Published Monday March 31st, 2008
Appeared on page A1
The rumour already reported coast-to-coast in this concert-crazed nation will finally come home to roost this afternoon.
Debra Rathwell of AEG Live and Donald K. Tarlton of Donald K. Donald have called a news conference for 1:30 this afternoon in Moncton at which time they are expected to confirm The Eagles will headline the 2008 Magnetic Hill Music Festival August 2..
While the promoters are expected to also unveil the names of at least some of the top-calibre opening acts for the event, the veil of secrecy surrounding the whole enterprise has been unlike anything seen here before in the concert business. It is easier to get a U.S. presidential candidate's passport information than it is to see who will take the stage in Moncton this summer.
Boxes of promotional materials were double taped and locked away, promoters' jaws were clamped tighter than a mussel you shouldn't eat, and the Grand Salon of the Delta Beauséjour Hotel was locked up tighter than a drum kit last night as the set-up began for today's big announcement.
Despite the secrecy, all signs nevertheless point to what is sure to be the biggest music event in the Maritimes since the Rolling Stones stormed Magnetic Hill in 2005.
Ian Fowler, the general manager of the City of Moncton's Recreation, Parks, Culture and Tourism department, has been better known around the Maritimes in recent years as "Moncton's concert czar." But he surrendered his title last night in mock disgrace under a grilling from the Times & Transcript.
"So much for the whole czar thing. They won't even tell me," Fowler said last night as he came from a dinner with the promoters. He even skirted the issue of confirming The Eagles were landing, even though most of the city's hotels are already booked.
Fowler told the Times & Transcript that all New Brunswickers are equally in the dark about the precise nature of the big announcement, if that's any consolation. Premier Shawn Graham, who is expected to take part in tomorrow's press conference, has asked him the same questions, and gotten the same answers.
"I just don't know," Folwer said.
The musical love that dare not speak its name -- at least until 1:30 this afternoon -- will be just the latest blast in an ongoing Moncton concert boom. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, George Jones and Anne Murray are all set for shows in coming months, and each should fill the Moncton Coliseum. An Eagles concert, especially with great opening acts, should draw crowds to surpass all those and many of the year's other concerts combined.
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