All sitting there blowing in the wind through a chain link fence as my school bus went past. The piles were at least 10 feet high and there were many many of them.
I remember picking up the core of yellow ore that were left laying around on the open range land. My Dad was an electrician wiring some of the mines. This was 1958. We were only there for 4-5 months then moved on to another job in another state (not involved with radiation).
Six years later my Dad was dead from stomach cancer. While he did not smoke he always had an unlit cigar in his mouth.
I knew several kids that died of leukemia in Albuquerque during the time they were testing bombs at Jackass Flats in NV.
Years later I became a registered radiological technologist so radiation has been a large part of my life.
People are still dying from the effects of those mines. You have only to look at the Navajo population in the areas around the mines. Then of course the Down winders have records of health problems.
Read on about the half life of the 3 isotopes from uranium ore (remember this is the half life of UNPROCESSED uranium not the same type being exploded in bombs):
Natural uranium consists of three isotopes: uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234. Uranium isotopes are radioactive. The nuclei of radioactive elements are unstable, meaning they are transformed into other elements, typically by emitting particles (and sometimes by absorbing particles). This process, known as radioactive decay, generally results in the emission of alpha or beta particles from the nucleus. It is often also accompanied by emission of gamma radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation, like X-rays. These three kinds of radiation have very different properties in some respects but are all ionizing radiation--each is energetic enough to break chemical bonds, thereby possessing the ability to damage or destroy living cells.
Summary of Uranium Isotopes
Isotope Percent in natural uranium No. of Protons No. of Neutrons Half-Life (in years)
Uranium-238 99.284 92 146 4.46 billion
Uranium-235 0.711 92 143 704 million
Uranium-234 0.0055 92 142 245,000
Uranium-238, the most prevalent isotope in uranium ore, has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years; that is, half the atoms in any sample will decay in that amount of time. Uranium-238 decays by alpha emission into thorium-234, which itself decays by beta emission to protactinium-234, which decays by beta emission to uranium-234, and so on. The various decay products, (sometimes referred to as "progeny" or "daughters") form a series starting at uranium-238. After several more alpha and beta decays, the series ends with the stable isotope lead-206.
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/uranium.htmlNow the mining is also being done by In-situ leaching. If there are fractures in the rocks this can get into drinking water and destroy water wells.
This is the same type of drilling being done for oil in some mines. It has caused problems in some areas even though geologist stated there were no fractures in the rock formation.wells