Miley Sue Uranium Tailings Crisis: Dam Severn Threatens Fergana Valley in Central Asia

Overview

The B1M investigates Miley Sue, a small Central Asian town born of Soviet uranium mining, where nearly a million cubic meters of radioactive tailings sit atop a hillside and threaten the fertile Fergana Valley. After a 2023 inspection revealed a dam and tailings upheaval, engineers concluded that repairing Tailings Pond Severn is unlikely and relocation is the remaining option. The video explains how independence after the Soviet collapse left Kyrgyzstan with a massive cleanup burden, the financial and logistical hurdles of moving tailings across rugged terrain, and the ongoing safety concerns including recent truck accidents linked to tailings transport. It also situates the risk within the valley’s 14 million people and its critical agricultural economy, dependent on the Sidaya River and regional water flows.

Progress is slow, funding is uncertain, and the fate of Miley Sue and the Fergana Valley hangs in the balance as international lenders and Rosatom weigh how to address this decades-old legacy.

Introduction and Background

The B1M examines Miley Sue, a once-secret Soviet mining town in Central Asia that supplied uranium ore for nuclear weapons. The town produced yellow cake uranium powder used in the USSR's first atomic bomb in 1949. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Kyrgyzstan and neighboring countries inherited a legacy of radioactive tailings and underfunded cleanup, with little local expertise or money to manage the sites. Tailings ponds across the region became the lingering hazard of Cold War industrial activity.

The Tailings Challenge and 2023 Findings

Tailings Pond Severn sits adjacent to the Syr or Sidaya river in a region where the Fergana Valley provides the agricultural backbone for roughly 14 million people. In 2023, a routine inspection found that the dam was compromised by a slip of radioactive sludge that had seeped into the structure itself. What engineers expected to be a compact, stable mass proved to be a loose, saturated deposit with low cohesion, behaving more like toothpaste than solid earth. Even a substantially larger buttress would not guarantee safety, meaning the dam could not be repaired and posed a potential, devastating failure scenario if the valley were hit by a major quake or seismic event.

Geography, Stakes, and Cross-Border Consequences

The Fergana Valley is a vast, densely populated agricultural heartland surrounded by rugged mountains. The valley’s lifeblood is the Sidaya river and interconnected water systems that cross Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. A dam failure at Tailings Pond Severn would unleash radioactive tailings downstream, contaminating riverbanks, groundwater, and farmland, with long-term cancer risks for millions and potentially crippling the region’s food supply chain.

Relocation Plan and Safety Concerns

Given that the dam cannot be repaired, the plan is to relocate about 900,000 cubic meters of tailings from Miley Sue to Tailings Pond 15, a more stable containment site. This involves months of low-tech trucking along dangerous, narrow mountain roads. Incidents at other Kyrgyz sites highlight the risk of truck spills, with a June 2024 accident in Minush followed by a second spill three months later. Driver safety measures, including alcohol testing, are being implemented to reduce recurrence, but the logistical challenge remains immense and costly.

Costs, Funding, and Progress

Repairing Tailings Pond Severn is estimated at around 4.5 million USD, while relocating the tailings could cost roughly 17 million USD. The disparity underscores the sometimes absurd scale of choosing relocation over repair. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) funds multiple projects in Kyrgyzstan and the region, and Rosatom funds some initiatives as well. Some nearby sites, like Shikafta and Minkus, have made progress, but Tailings Pond Severn remains stalled, with erosion of momentum and funding for the critical cleanup still uncertain. The video ends with the people of Miley Sue and the Fergana Valley awaiting action and funding to address this long-standing legacy of nuclear-age engineering.