> If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? Your mental picture of the process is a bit off: Urani

> If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? Your mental picture of the process is a bit off: Uranium mining happens mostly by pumping a leaching agent (typically some acid) into the ground, and extracting it elsewhere via wells. This is very obviously not helpful for groundwater quality. And you are not extracting just Uranium (or even other "desirable" heavy metals)-- most of the radioactivity (>80%) is in economically uninteresting decay products, and you just want/need to get rid of those.