Cigar Lake Remediation Proving To Be Tedious

Cigar Lake Remediation Proving To Be Tedious

Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 13:25

 

 

A Cameco official says cleanup efforts at the Cigar Lake uranium operation are progressing, but at a very slow pace.

 

Water first poured into the mine on October 23rd — sending work crews scrambling and halting construction efforts.

 

Roughly two-and-a-half months later, Cameco workers are now getting ready to pump concrete into the mine to seal off the leak and make sure others don’t occur.

 

Spokesman Lyle Krahn admits this task has been tougher than first thought.

 

He says Cameco hoped to begin pouring concrete slurry last month, but has been forced to hold off until now because of the difficulty in drilling 18 separate holes through the surface.

 

Krahn says once the concrete is poured, cement will be dumped on top of that to seal the cracks.

 

He adds the new material shouldn’t make recovery of uranium any harder in the future.

 

He says the company will release a timetable in February regarding when Cameco plans to see construction resume.