Gunnar Uranium Mine and Mill Site
Gunnar Uranium Mine
and Mill Site
Location
The former Gunnar Mine site is located on the north shore of Lake Athabasca, approximately 25 kilometres southwest of Uranium City.
General Description
The mine operated from 1955-1963 and officially closed in 1964 with little to no decommissioning. During operation, the Gunnar Site consisted of:
- An open pit mine (over 100 m deep, 250 m x 300 m in size)
- An underground mine (600 m deep)
- A uranium mill (capacity of 2000 tonnes/day)
- Two acid plants
- Uranium processing buildings
- A community (including a number of residential, public, administrative and technical buildings)
- Approximately 4.4 million tonnes of tailings
- Approximately 2.2 to 2.7 million tonnes of waste rock
When the mine closed a narrow trench was blasted in the rock between the pit and Lake Athabasca to flood the pit and the underground workings. In 1966, the channel was filled with waste rock as a barrier between the pit and the lake.
Remediation Progress
SRC began demolition work at the site in the fall of 2010 and work is continuing in 2013.
Demolition activities to-date have included:
- Extensive asbestos abatement of buildings
- Demolition of more than 80 buildings and structures
- Cleaning up site debris
- Constructing a barrier around the open pit
- Removing physical, chemical, radiological and biological hazards
- Completing asbestos abatement and demolishing remaining buildings, facilities and structures
Remaining clean up work for the building demolition phase includes:
- Disposing demolition debris
- Installing an appropriate cover on the exposed mill tailings
- Re-vegetating and conducting water treatment, as required
- Monitoring during and after remediation
The remediation activities required to address the entire site will be completed upon final approval of the Environmental Impact Assessment project.
Contact us to learn more about the Gunnar Mine site clean up.