BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 22
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia (ERA) and the government of Uzbekistan have signed a grant agreement allowing to start preparations to completely put out former uranium mining sites in Uzbekistan, Trend reports citing EBRD.
The 2-million euro grant will support a recently established Project Management Unit (PMU), which will be dealing with the environmental remediation of the former uranium mining sites at Yangiabad and Charkesar, located in the mountains east of the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
As a first step, the PMU can start preparing the necessary tender documentation for remediation works at the two sites. Physical work on the ground is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2022 and will take approximately two years to complete.
Located at an altitude of 1,300 metres in an area with a high risk of seismic activity, and around 70 km from Tashkent, Yangiabad was a uranium mining site for nearly 40 years. It is spread across a 50 km2 area and contains about 2.6 million m3 of radioactive waste. Planned remediation work includes closing four shafts, demolishing contaminated buildings and processing facilities, relocating several waste rock dumps to a central covered dump and other associated activities.
The SMP was approved in September 2021 by the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Union (EU), the EBRD and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom). It will serve as an example of how to coordinate nuclear remediation activity at priority sites.
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