Environment & Safety
Long-term environmental management systems collect thousands of water, soil and air samples annually at Rabbit Lake.
Worker Safety
- Radiation doses for all workers at Rabbit Lake are well below allowable limits.
- Workers' cumulative gamma doses are recorded on radiation badges.
Results are reported to the regulators and to Cameco employees.
- Cameco also conducts an annual sampling program related to worker
safety involving thousands of samples. The results of the sampling
show that the workplaces are safe.
- Rabbit Lake's Cameco and long-term contract employees achieved
one year without a lost-time accident in August 2000.
- Rabbit Lake was the winner of the Canadian Institute of Mining,
Metallurgy and Petroleum's John T. Ryan trophy for the best safety
record for metal mines in Canada in 2000.
Tailings Management
The purpose of tailings management is to isolate and store the
waste residue from the milling process so that people and the environment
are protected.
The mined-out Rabbit Lake pit stores tailings from the mill.
The tailings from the mill are deposited in the mined-out Rabbit
Lake pit using the pervious surround method of tailings management.
In this system, the pit wall is lined with crushed rock and sand.Tailings are then placed into the pit. Water from the tailings
is pumped out and returned to the mill for use in the milling process and
the tailings become compacted.
When the pit is filled, the tailings will be covered with a layer
of sand and crushed rock and the lake water level will be restored.
The compacted tailings will remain safely in the pit, below the
bottom of the lake.
Groundwater will follow the path of least resistance and flow through
the crushed rock and sand but not through the compacted tailings.
The groundwater will not be contaminated because it flows around
the tailings. Environmental impacts will be minimal. The results
of environmental monitoring, after more than two decades of operation,
show this disposal system is performing well, as predicted.
Decommissioning
Cameco is committed to environmentally safe operations. We are continually
monitoring to ensure the environment is effectively protected at our
sites. Areas no longer in use are landscaped and revegetated to return
them as much as possible to their predevelopment state.
The decommissioning scenarios listed below are not final and may
change as detailed engineering is completed and regulatory approvals
are received.
After more than 30 years of development and production at Rabbit Lake, bears, wolves, moose, beavers, otters, osprey (shown above), eagles and geese continue to thrive.
Rabbit Lake Open Pit Tailings Facility -- The open pit tailings
facility will be capped with clean material once the tailings are
fully consolidated and water will be allowed to return to natural
levels.
Original Rabbit Lake Tailings Management Facility -- A contoured
cap will be placed over the facility once the tailings are consolidated
and the surface will be vegetated. The cap will ensure long-term
integrity and effective drainage of surface run-off.
Collins Bay Zones -- Special waste was placed in the bottom
of the mined-out open pits, covered with clean till and the pits
were re-flooded. The remaining waste stockpiles will be contoured
and revegetated. The dams isolating the flooded pits from Collins
Bay will be opened to allow the free exchange of water.
Eagle Point -- All special waste and as much waste rock
as feasible will be returned underground at Eagle Point as fill.
Surface areas will be contoured and vegetated.
Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Policy
