SOURCE: Paydirt

DATE: November 1998

Saskatoon is the new world uranium capital

Saskatoon is the new world uranium capital

During the last ice age, powerful fingers of ice pushed south from the Arctic, grinding their way across miles, of largely uninhabited country. The relentless glaciers severed the tops from boulders which were packed with uranium ore.

With the ice receding to the northern latitudes, these 'hot' rocks gave modern-day aerial prospectors a clue that the Athabasca basin contained some of the most highly concentrated uranium deposits found anywhere on earth.

Aerial prospecting detected the anomalies using airborne scintillators, sending geologists on the ground to find the source of the abnormally 'high count.

Explorationists traced the rock back to their origins to northern Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin, and later drilling confirmed the presence of incredibly high-grade deposits.

Now, the uranium capital of the world has shifted from Riverton, Wyo. and Grants, N.M., to Saskatoon, Sask., where the world's major producers, Cameco and Cogema among others, have newly-established headquarters.

Compared to the Wyoming and New Mexico commutes for miners from their' homes to the mines, the Athabasca Basin uranium deposits are so far north, about 500 miles from Saskatoon, that the mining and milling crews for the mines at Rabbit Lake, Cigar Lake, Key Lake and McArthur River, routinely travel to work by air and live in camps.

Mining is now completed at Cameco's Key Lake, but while it operated it maintained its status as the largest uranium operation in the world with a total output of 14.1 million pounds of U3O8 in 1997.

Key Lake's reclamation plans give strong consideration to the Canadian natives living in the area. While most of them live about 200km from the mine, Cameco pays close attention to the preferences of the area's indigenous people regarding reclamation.

The uranium contains small amounts of cobalt and nickel, which goes into the tailings, posing the question: to remove or not to remove. The preferred reclamation method is subaqueous tailings pumped into a nearby pit after it has been prepared with sand and glacial till for safe storage. A drainage system and mill-tailings management procedure have won regulatory approval.

Special 'low-grade' ores, too lean to warrant milling, have been stockpiled at Key Lake. Ore from the new McArthur River Mine is so high grade that is needs to be diluted to make it feasible to mill in the Key Lake plant. (See PAY DIRT, Feb.'98, p. 24).

Uranium mining has a definite future in North America, and once governmental policies come around to recognizing the importance of nuclear power in the energy mix of our global economy, the uranium industry will flourish once more.

(From a story by Bob Peck in The Riverton Ranger)