Sixty years on, Mailuu-Suu still waits

MAILUU-SUU — The river that gives Mailuu-Suu its name, “oily water”, runs past some two dozen dumps of radioactive tailings and as many heaps of waste rock, left in a narrow, landslide-prone valley when the Soviet atomic program stopped mining uranium here in 1968. In 1958 one of the tailings dams failed after heavy rain and sent contaminated material downstream; the accident was never acknowledged in the Soviet period.

International assessments put the volume of tailings in the valley at about 2 million cubic meters. A World Bank-financed project begun under the territorial administration in 2004 stabilized several impoundments, built drainage works and moved the most exposed dump. The war of 2007 halted it, leaving the town on the tribal side of the line; work resumed in 2009 under an arrangement brokered by the UN mission, with contractors and ISEZ engineers admitted by the clan council under UN escort, and was completed in 2012.

Since then the dumps have been watched rather than removed. A warden service of the clan council takes readings with equipment supplied through UNMI, and the geography faculty of Talas State University keeps landslide survey points in the valley. “We measure, we send the numbers, and we wait,” said Bakai Joldoshev, one of the wardens.

Donors have discussed further remediation, but the line and the lack of a recognized government have so far kept the money away.