How Much Uranium Can Be Left at Former U Mining Sites? The Need for a Complex Assessment Framework

Uranium mining and milling legacies are sources of releases of uranium into the environment. At the WISMUT sites in Saxony and Thuringia, in Eastern Germany, as a result of remedial actions considerable amounts of uranium have been already removed from soil and water, and releases into the environment have been continuously reduced during the last two decades under the WISMUT project. However, there are sites where complete removal is impossible and releases of uranium into the environment continue. In terms of optimization this raises the question of how much uranium in the environment is acceptable. The paper discusses a number of approaches to assess the radiological, ecological and toxicological risks of uranium at former uranium mining and milling sites.