The first case of uranium legacy sites remediation in Uzbekistan under EBRD financing

Abstract Mining of uranium leads to generation of large amounts of radioactive waste. This waste, if located near populated areas, water basins, or in seismically active regions, poses a threat to habitants and contributes to environmental pollution. Such risks are particularly prevalent in the Central Asian region. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of these mining sites were hastily stopped or abandoned, leaving the large volumes of uncontrolled waste. The remediation such the sites requires significant methodological, technical, and financial investments that the newly independent Central Asian countries often lack. In this regard, the international community assists the Central Asian countries and such an experience of foreign methodological and financial support for Uzbekistan is being conducted for the first time. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of how to get the remediation of damaged environment at former uranium mines using investments from the EBRD, starting from identification of the issue up to remediation itself. The process of preparing and implementing the remediation for two uranium legacy sites in Usbekistan, results achieved, lessons learned and conclusions are described.