Impacts of acidic ISR on geochemistry and bacteria in Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, in-situ recovery (ISR) mining utilizes H2SO4 (pH < 2) to mobilize uranium from naturally reducing conditions. ISR can be less environmentally impactful than physical mining techniques, but it risks groundwater (GW) contamination. Presented here is a geochemical and metagenomic analysis and comparison of pre-, mid-, and post-mining GW conditions. Biostimulation may limit the spread of U and decrease the time of exposure, compared to natural attenuation, by orders of magnitude