Uranium in the environment resulting in workers exposed to high levels of radiation. Conventional uranium ore treatment mills create radioactive waste in the form of tailings, which contain uranium, radium, and polonium. Consequently, uranium mining results in "the unavoidable radioactive contamination of the environment by solid, liquid and gaseous wastes". Inhalation of radon gas caused sharp increases in lung cancers among underground uranium miners employed in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1940s and 1950s, uranium mill tailings were released with impunity into water sources, and the radium leached from these tailings contaminated thousands of miles of the Colorado River system. Between 1966 and
Uranium trioxide which operates at the world's largest uranium refinery at Blind River, Ontario, produces high-purity uranium trioxide. It has been reported that the corrosion of uranium in a silica rich aqueous solution forms uranium dioxide, uranium trioxide, and coffinite. In pure water, schoepite (UO)O(OH)·12(HO) is formed in the first week and then after four months studtite (UO)O·4(HO) was produced. This alteration of uranium oxide also leads to the formation of metastudtite, Like all hexavalent uranium compounds, UO is hazardous by inhalation, ingestion, and through skin contact. It is a poisonous, slightly radioactive substance, which may cause shortness of breath, coughing, acute