MOSCOW, April 23. /TASS/. Reports about the flooding of production wells at the Dobrovolnoye uranium deposit in Russia’s Kurgan region are deliberate misinformation, the corporate communications department at JSC Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ, the mining division of Rosatom), told TASS.
"The fields of JSC Dalur (the ARMZ enterprise) are located on a hill and away from the water. The flood did not affect them. There is no threat of flooding. In the Zverinogolovsky district the water has been falling for several days. The flood situation is being monitored. Reports of production wells entering the flooding zone are deliberate misinformation," ARMZ said adding that it concerns all wells, both exhausted and operating.
To prove the situation on the ground, Rosatom is ready "at any time to organize a visit of representatives of media and regulatory authorities to the field," ARMZ said.
Earlier pro-Ukrainian telegram channels and media spread the reports with reference to environmentalists about the flooding of old wells at the Dobrovolnoye deposit, where JSC Dalur produces uranium, and about the release of uranium into the Tobol River.
The deposits of JSC Dalur are located in the Zverinogolovsky, Dalmatovsky and Shumikhinsky districts of the Kurgan region. The enterprise carries out industrial operation and development of deposits related to the Trans-Ural uranium ore region. This is the first enterprise in Russia to mine uranium using the underground leaching technology - the softest of all known technologies of mining. The most important feature of underground leaching is a closed mining process that does not generate waste, which avoids changes to the earth's surface, the formation of overburden dumps and tailings ponds.