FMBA Inspected 607 Dalur Wells. Data of «Anti-Uranium Activists» Turned Out to be Fake Again

Inspection of uranium deposits of Dalur, JSC in the Kurgan region, carried out by the Interregional Directorate No. 92 of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency of the Russian Federation (Interregional Directorate No. 92 of the FMBA of Russia) and the Federal Budgetary Institution of Health Care «Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology No. 92 in the Chelyabinsk Region» (FBIHC CHE No. 92), did not reveal any violations of radiation safety and environmental pollution standards. In total, FMBA inspected 607 wells of Dalur, JSC (subsidiary of ARMZ Uranium Holding Co./Mining Division of ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation) at production sites in the Dalmatovsky and Shumikhinsky districts of the Trans-Urals. The inspection was carried out at the end of October — November 2020. The studies of the gamma exposure rate, soil, levels of physical factors, etc. were carried out. The central production site, local sorption units and all deposits of the Dalmatovskoye and Khokhlovskoye fields were inspected.

The inspection results are set out in a letter from Mikhail Chernov, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Interregional Directorate No. 92 of the FMBA of Russia «The measurement results met the requirements of SanPiN 2.6.1.2523-09 Radiation Safety Standards and 2.6.1.2612-10 Basic Sanitary Rules for Ensuring Radiation Safety».

The inspection results refute the information about the excess of the permissible radiation background and soil contamination at the fields of the Trans-Urals, which was previously distributed by a number of channels. «Personally, of course, I was very surprised when I saw a video on social media in which some strange people measure the radiation level with... a mobile phone and show terrible numbers on its screen. I can immediately distinguish fact from fake. But someone who did not have information about the measurement rules and the obligatory instrument calibration could, of course, believe and be frightened. This already happened when the so-called „anti-uranium activists“ measured radiation with a faulty device that showed data ten times higher than the real one. Dalur is a transparent company, we ourselves turned to FMBA with a request to carry out the most detailed studies. I hope that their results will once again convince the residents of the Trans-Urals in the safety of in-situ leaching for humans and the environment,» says Nikolay Poponin, Director General of Dalur, JSC.

Earlier, in September 2020, the safety of production at the fields of the Kurgan region had already been confirmed. Then the first ecological expedition took place as part of the public ecological monitoring program. It was attended by graduate students in Radiation and Nuclear Safety Technologies from the Physical and Technical Institute of the Ural Federal University, scientists from the Institute of Industrial Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, representatives of the Public Council of ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation and the environmental Autonomous Non-Profit Organization EnEKO. They have carried out an impressive amount of studies. «In particular, we examined over 40 active wells for uranium mining; at each of them we studied the specific soil activity and the dose rate. We took over 20 samples of earth and soil, vegetation of areas near the wells. Also, a gamma scan of several kilometers of highways at the production sites was performed; samples and control specimens were taken. The expedition results confirmed that no facts of soil contamination with radionuclides have been established in areas with modern methods of process parameter monitoring,» said Alexey Ekidin, a member of the Public Council of ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation.