Abstract:
Radioactive waste near the industrial zones of the mining administrations of the
Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine, which occupy vast areas of the
territory, remains an urgent problem for Northern Kazakhstan. For example, waste
rock processing referred to as “tailings”, is contained in huge industrial basinlakes, called tailings. Each liter of jelly-like “pulp”, in addition to carbonates of
arsenic, molybdenum, phosphorus and other chemical elements, contains up to
1 g of active uranium, as well as radium and thorium. As a result of the pedestrian
gamma survey, the authors identified a locally contaminated area in the northwest
direction from the sanitary protection zone of the tailing dump of the Stepnogorsk
Mining and Chemical Combine. It has been established that, according to the
indices of radioactive contamination of water bodies, the stagnant water bodies of
the Manybaiskiy and Sulukamysskiy thalweg located behind the sanitary protection
zone of the tailing dump of the Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine are
classified as contaminated.
