Uranium pollution in an estuary affected by two different contamination sources

Abstract

Odiel River estuary has been deeply affected, from 1960s until 1990s, by direct discharges of phosphogypsum due to operation of phosphoric acid factories. When direct discharges were halted, a self-cleaning of river has been observed. However, a second source or uranium due to former mining operations, located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, could prevent the complete uranium cleaning due to acid mine drainage of uranium from the upstream Odiel River basin. An exhaustive study, using different analyzing techniques, allows discovering this second source of uranium contamination.