Mailii Su - Picture series
Picture 8
Picture showing snake guarding #5's clay cover from human intrusion
Description
None of the tailings dumps is protected by a fence or something similiar from intrusion of cattle and people. This dangerous snake lives on the clay cover of tailings dump #5. It's job is to prevent too many persons from jumping around on top of the precious cover. The clay cover, as long as it's soaking wet in spring, prevents little radon atoms from coming out of the dumped hazardious material, intruding person's lung leaving little alpha-radiators in there and, 20 years later, causing lung cancer. So stepping over the wet clay degrades the cover, because at least 120 gram clay stay behind on every person's shoes (I tested that by myself!) and so degrading the cover quality with every intruding uranium tourist. To keep their number as low as reasonably achievable, a snake was hired by the owner of the dump, Kirgis-Gold.
© 1997 by Gerhard Schmidt, Heppenheim/Germany
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