Uranium Mines and Mills: Wismut Environmental Remediation Project (Germany). Appendix V

From 1946 to 1990, the Soviet–German Wismut Company produced 231 000 tonnes of uranium and became the world's fourth largest uranium producer at that time. Owing to the mining of low grade ore, about 800 million tonnes of waste rock materials, radioactive sludges and overburden material were deposited at the sites. The mining and milling activities resulted in seriously affected and devastated areas of about 10 000 km² in the federal states Saxony and Thuringia, in the former East Germany. In 1990, after German re-unification, uranium production ceased and the German Government was faced with one of its largest ecological and economic challenges: Wismut transitioned immediately from production to decommissioning without any preparation or preplanning. Since 1991, the national corporation Wismut GmbH has been charged with decommissioning of the mines, mills and other facilities and with the rehabilitation of the sites. The German Government initially earmarked a total of €6.4 billion to remediate the uranium mining and milling legacy at the affected sites. Current estimates predict total project costs of €7 billion. The overall project includes: — Abandoning and flooding underground mines; — Relocating and covering waste rock piles; — Dewatering and geochemically stabilizing tailings management facilities; — Demolishing structures and buildings; — Treating contaminated water; — Site clearance; — Site rehabilitation