Environmental Studies of Flooded Opencuts

In the course of uranium mining and extraction operations at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory of Australia over the period 1953–70, processing materials were obtained from five opencuts and a sixth was excavated to just below the level of the ore body. In the monsoonal climate of Northern Australia, with its annual average rainfall of about 150 mm during the wet season, all opencuts became water-filled on the cessation of mining operations. Those in the Rum Jungle Mine area proper (Fig. 1) have become highly acidic and metal-polluted (Intermediate, White’s and Dyson’s Opencuts); the water in the other three opencuts (Rum Jungle Creek South, Mt Burton and Mt Fitch Opencuts) is neutral to slightly alkaline in reaction and the heavy metal content is negligible (Davy, 1975).