Se Isotopes as groundwater redox indicators: Detecting natural attenuation of Se at an in situ recovery U mine

Anirban, Basu; Schilling, Kathrin; Brown, Shaun T.; Johnson, Thomas M.; Christensen, John N.; Hartmann, Matt; Reimus, Paul William; Heikoop, Jeffrey Martin; Woldegabriel, Giday; DePaolo, Donald J.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.6b01464

Title: Se Isotopes as groundwater redox indicators: Detecting natural attenuation of Se at an in situ recovery U mine

Journal Article · Mon Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Environmental Science and Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b01464· OSTI ID:1345152

Anirban, Basu ^[1]; Schilling, Kathrin ^[2]; Brown, Shaun T. ^[3]; Johnson, Thomas M. ^[4]; Christensen, John N. ^[5]; Hartmann, Matt ^[6];

^[7];

^[7]; Woldegabriel, Giday ^[7]; DePaolo, Donald J. ^[3]

Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Dept. of Geology
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Uranium Resources, Inc., Centennial, CO (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

One of the major ecological concerns associated with the in situ recovery (ISR) of uranium (U) is the environmental release of soluble, toxic selenium (Se) oxyanions generated by mining. Post-mining natural attenuation by the residual reductants in the ore body and reduced down-gradient sediments should mitigate the risk of Se contamination in groundwater. In this work, we investigate the Se concentrations and Se isotope systematics of groundwater and of U ore bearing sediments from an ISR site at Rosita, TX, USA. Our results show that selenate (Se(VI)) is the dominant Se species in Rosita groundwater, and while several up-gradient wells have elevated Se(VI), the majority of the ore zone and down-gradient wells have little or no Se oxyanions. In addition, the δ 82 Se VI of Rosita groundwater is generally elevated relative to the U ore up to +6.14‰, with the most enriched values observed in the ore-zone wells. Increasing δ 82 Se with decreasing Se(VI) conforms to a Rayleigh type distillation model with an ϵ of -2.25‰ ± 0.61‰, suggesting natural Se(VI) reduction occurring along the hydraulic gradient at the Rosita ISR site. Furthermore, our results show that Se isotopes are excellent sensors for detecting and monitoring post-mining natural attenuation of Se oxyanions at ISR sites.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Contributing Organization:: Uranium Resources, Inc., Centennial, CO (United States)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1345152

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1440942

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-16-24690

Journal Information:: Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 50, Issue 20; ISSN 0013-936X

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 11 works

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