Uranium miner Paladin Africa says the success of its environmental management strategy for the Kayelekera uranium mine, in Malawi, has won kudos from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is using the strategy as a model for other countries looking to start uranium mining.

Paladin GM for international affairs Greg Walker says the company, which has met its environmental obligations for Kayelekera, as stipulated in the development agreement signed with the Malawi government, has collaborated with the IAEA in implementing its environmental management plan.
He adds: “The IAEA has inspected the Kayelekera mine and has used Malawi’s experience in this field to train other African nations.”
Walker explains that, as part of the environmental management plan, the Kayelekera mine has a whole-of-site water management strategy for the mine site and its surroundings.

In pursuing this strategy, Paladin established a network of drains to manage surface runoff across the entire Kayelekera mine site, and all potentially contaminated runoff is captured and stored on site, in two purpose-built ponds.

Says Walker: “The Kayelekera mine has been designed to function as a zero-discharge facility under normal operating conditions. All contaminated or potentially contaminated water is separated from clean water and is contained on site. No contaminated or potentially contaminated water is allowed to directly discharge into the environment. This is the same standard as applied to uranium mines in Australia. In the case of the Kayelekera mine, this means that there is no direct discharge of any contaminated or potentially contaminated runoff water from the site into the nearby Sere river or other external environments under normal circumstances.”

However, Walker says in the case of a storm being greater than 1:100 year 24-hour event and where the available storage is exceeded, the designated storage facilities for potentially contaminated water are permitted to overflow directly into the environment. The discharge, when diluted by the extensive volume of runoff water entering the local water-course system in such a severe storm event, would have a negligible impact on the Sere river.

“Nevertheless, should any such discharge occur, upstream and downstream monitoring of the water quality and the quantity of water released would be conducted and analytical results would be reported to government,” he says.

Paladin also exercises strict environmental guidelines at the Kayelekera mine when dealing with tailings. The tailings are contained in a clay-lined purpose-built tailings storage facility (TSF) designed to contain a 1:500 year 24-hour storm runoff.

Decant water is recovered from the TSF and stored in the decant pond, which is lined with high-density polyethylene. Process water recovered from the TSF is reused in the plant.

“Paladin Africa advises that no uncontrolled releases of contaminated or potentially contami- nated water have occurred to date from the TSF or the decant pond at the Kayelekera mine ,” says Walker.

The mine is also equipped with a water treatment facility, which would be used to treat and release surplus water into the Sere river in consultation with Malawi’s Environmental Affairs Department in the event of a surplus of water building up at Kayelekera, threatening to overload the water storage system.

As part of its environmental protection strategy, Paladin has maintained a $10-million (K3.9-billion) environmental performance bond with local commercial banks Standard Bank Malawi and Nedbank Malawi since 2009.

“This bond is of the utmost importance to protect both life and the environment during and after the mine’s operating life,” says Walker.
Walker says the $10-million bond amount is subject to regular review and will be progressively increased to meet the estimated cost of closure and rehabilitation as the mine gets closer to closure.