UN forum sees consensus on uranium tailings

30 June 2009

Delegates and representatives from Central Asian countries have agreed to work together to solve problems relating to radioactive and toxic waste left over from historic uranium mining at a United Nations-led forum.

Uranium mill tailings impoundment at Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan (Image: LLNL)

The Geneva conference, organised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), aimed to develop measures to address the challenges of dealing with tailings from Cold War-era uranium mining in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and followed on from a conference held in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek in May.
 
According to the UNDP, the countries involved have been unable to deal adequately with the problem of over 800 million tonnes of radioactive and toxic waste in "precarious" ponds held back by "unstable" dams because of overstrained budgets and lack of capacity. UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said the legacy of nuclear waste and related environmental management issues has a direct impact on human development in the region. "As most of the uranium tailing sites are located in densely populated and natural-disaster prone areas of Central Asia's largest river basins, they represent a major potential risk to the region's water supply and the health of millions of people," she said in a statement to the forum.
 
The forum was not a pledging conference, the UNDP said, but it did succeed in creating political and technical consensus both among Central Asian governments and with major donors. International organisations and donors including UNDP, OSCE, the European Commission, EurAsEC, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the governments of Canada, Finland, Norway and Russia had expressed support for the initiative. "We now have real momentum towards a multilateral approach to dealing with the problem," said Miroslav Jenca, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to Central Asia.
 
UNDP Resident Representative and UN Coordinator Neal Walker said that the forum had secured definite outcomes, including strengthening regulatory frameworks and national capacity to address the problem. "With the publicity around the event, we have generated important public awareness of the problem and broad political support for the implementation of solutions," he said. 
 

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