In 2009 the Australian Office of the Supervising Scientist warned that the Ranger Uranium Mine was spilling the equivalent of three petrol tankers-worth of contaminated water into the ground each day. In total, there have been more than 150 leaks, spills and other problems at the site since it opened in 1981.

Earlier this year, news outlets reported that the water seeping out from beneath the dam at the Ranger mine has a uranium level of about 5,400 times greater than the natural background level.

While Australia has no nuclear weapons, and does not currently use uranium to generate electricity, it holds around 23% of the world's uranium reserves, has three large-scale uranium mines and three nuclear reactors with the capacity to commercially produce radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and neutrons for research and irradiation of materials. Australia has also accumulated over 4000 cubic metres of low level and 'short-lived' intermediate level radioactive waste in the past 40 years.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory published two studies on the research in January and February this year. Both appeared in the US-based journal Environmental Science & Technology.