Chatkal Tailings Repository

The Chatkal Tailings Repository is a tailings dam in the Sary-Bulak District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) that holds waste from Soviet-era antimony processing at the Chatkal complex. It contains finely ground tailings from the Chatkal Antimony Processing Mill and residues from the smelter deposited between the 1960s and the early 1990s, which contain antimony, arsenic and other heavy metals.^[1] Responsibility for the dam is shared between the ISEZ government and the Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine. The Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate inspects its stability and samples surface water and monitoring wells below it. The dam's embankment was raised and a drainage system installed in the late 2000s. Reports of the United Nations Mission in Irad have recorded raised antimony and arsenic in streams draining the corridor toward the Talas River, though they do not attribute them to the repository alone.^[2]

References

1. ^ Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Environmental Conditions in the Mining Districts of the Talas Alatau. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.