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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Uraniummining in Europe. Impacts on Man and Environment (1995)

Auteur	Peter Diehl, WISE
Datum	september 1995
Classificatie	6.01.2.20/50 (URANIUM - WINNING/VOORRAAD/PRIJS)
Voorkant

PREFACE

In Europe, uranium mining has generally not taken place in the limelight, although 
about one third of the world's total uranium production has been produced in 
Europe so far.
In Western Germany, for example, the construction and operation of nuclear power 
plants, as well as the nuclear waste problem, have always found high public attention. 
The origin of the nuclear industry, the uranium mining industry, however, did never 
find that attention. One reason, obviously is that the uranium used for the German 
nuclear power plants is nearly completely imported from overseas, and the problems 
resulting from the uranium industry are thus not obvious in Western Germany.
Quite on the contrary, for example, the situation in France, the largest uranium 
producer in Western Europe: Here, a nation-wide network of environmental groups 
opposing uranium mining was already set up in 1979.
In Eastern Germany, there existed vast uranium mining operations; but information 
on them was not publicly accessible until the young peace and environmental activist 
Michael Beleites published his underground report "Pitchblend - Uranium Mining in 
the GDR and its Impacts" in 1988.
The situation changed abruptly with the political changes in 1989. It came to light 
that in Europe large areas had also been devastated for the production of the source 
material for the nuclear bomb, and later for nuclear power.
Meanwhile, uranium production has been shut down or strongly reduced in most 
European countries due to the high production cost. What is left over, are the 
countless shut-down uranium mines, hundreds of millions of tonnes of radiating 
waste rock and uranium mill tailings, presenting health risks through release of 
radon gas and contaminated seepage. This legacy does not only present an immediate 
hazard, but also endangers future generations for tens of thousands of years.
The time has come that the decisions on the fate of the uranium mining legacy 
and thus of the future generations must no longer be taken in obscurity.

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