Radioactive waste lies beside the river in Mailuu-Suu, a former uranium town in Kyrgyzstan’s picturesque mountain landscape. Engineers preparing to secure it found a problem inside one of its dams. Additional drilling revealed tailings within the dam structure itself. Two subsequent studies concluded that waste from two connected ponds would have to be moved to a safer location.
The discovery changed the cleanup design and increased its cost, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s revised master plan. Material that planners had intended to secure in place could no longer safely remain there.
Once known as Mailbox 200, the town was founded in 1946 for a secret Soviet uranium program. Its workforce included Germans treated as politically suspect and former Red Army soldiers punished for surrendering during World War II. Uranium mining and processing at Mailuu-Suu ended in the late 1960s, leaving waste buried along the river.
Cleanup is expected to continue until 2032. Even then, the authorities will need to maintain the restored sites and check that contamination remains contained.
Mailuu-Suu illustrates why Central Asia’s uranium cleanup has stretched across decades. The waste sits in places where rivers and unstable slopes can carry it beyond the original industrial sites. Making those places safer requires extensive engineering, followed by public oversight that must outlast the contractors.
Archival photograph of Mailuu-Suu’s old mill and uranium tailings; image: Peter Waggit/IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest assessment, published in January 2026, records substantial progress. Four out of seven priority sites have been remediated since the original regional plan was adopted in 2017. But Mailuu-Suu remains one of the largest and most complex projects, with work expected to extend beyond the updated regional plan’s 2030 horizon.
Across the region, former uranium operations left radioactive residue after mining and processing ended. The IAEA describes facilities abandoned without adequate plans for safe closure. National governments inherited responsibility for sites where no private owner remained to pay for the work.
The geography compounds the situation. The IAEA’s original planning framework identifies tailings ponds near major rivers in seismically active areas. Flooding or a landslide can undermine containment and lead to contaminated materials traveling downstream. The location of a deposit therefore helps determine the urgency and design of its cleanup.
At Mailuu-Suu, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced a €23 million grant in 2023. The original design included soil covers two meters thick to reduce water entering the waste and prevent access to it. The project concerned more than two million cubic meters of tailings along the river and its tributaries.
Following the devastating 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Construction required further checks on the dams’ stability. Drilling revealed tailings inside the dam at pond seven. Subsequent studies found that the waste in ponds five and seven could not safely remain in place.
The IAEA plan warns that a strong earthquake could cause the dam to collapse, allowing water-saturated waste to liquefy and enter the river. The Uzbek border lies only ten kilometers downstream. Relocating the waste would therefore reduce a danger that extends well beyond the former mining town.
Other work continued while engineers revised the plans for the two ponds. Mine-closure and demolition work finished in July 2024, ahead of schedule and below budget, according to the IAEA plan. The phased approach allowed those tasks to be completed while the more complex tailings work continued.
The consequences of unstable terrain have already been seen in Mailuu-Suu. In May 2002, a mudslide blocked the river and threatened a waste site, according to the environmental organization Pure Earth. Its account of earlier work in the town describes water filters supplied to schools and hospitals, alongside radon monitoring in homes.
The risks entered everyday routines. In a 2004 account, the OSCE described children wandering over poorly marked waste sites and contaminated material being used to build houses. During safety presentations, students asked: “What happens if we drink from the Mailuu-Suu River?”
Leaving was not a simple answer. “We offered relocating the people, but they refused. Home is home,” Osh-based researcher Rakhmanbek Toichuyev told Reuters in 2019.
Financing remains uneven. The EBRD’s Environmental Remediation Account, established in 2015, had received around €70 million in contributions by the end of 2025. The European Union is its largest donor. The bank says it has completed remediation at Min-Kush and Shekaftar in Kyrgyzstan, and at Charkesar and Yangiabad in Uzbekistan.
In Min-Kush, the authorities and international partners are exploring tourism as a source of income for the former uranium mining community.
However, the EBRD still lacks funding for its Tajik projects. The revised master plan estimates that €42.9 million is needed for the remaining work at the two priority sites of Degmay and Istiklol. Assessments and feasibility studies have already been completed, leaving a gap between designing the cleanup and paying for construction.
Tajikistan’s funding difficulties persist despite partial rehabilitation under a separate international program. At Istiklol, formerly Taboshar, work completed in 2023 reshaped and covered the Yellow Hill waste dump and addressed four tailings areas. Other parts of the extensive former uranium complex still require remediation.
Abandoned mill buildings and uranium tailings at Taboshar, now Istiklol, before remediation; image: Peter Waggit/IAEA
The revised master plan puts the estimated cost of the EBRD’s regional remediation program at €113 million, including project management and contingencies. Separate Russian-backed agreements cover work at additional sites. But completing one funded section can leave neighboring contaminated facilities awaiting another donor commitment.
After construction, responsibility shifts toward the national bodies that must look after the sites. In June 2026, Kyrgyzstan published a proposal for a unified monitoring system. The draft envisaged checks on protective structures and the surrounding environment, including surface water and groundwater.
The ministry stressed that long-term monitoring was needed to confirm that remediation remained effective.
The communities around former mines also need ways to earn a living. In March 2026, the United Nations Development Programme described local initiatives in Mailuu-Suu and other affected settlements, supported by the EU. Consultations brought residents and local authorities together to develop economic projects, with small grants intended to help turn proposals into businesses or improved services.
The program includes support for women and young people who have had less involvement in local decision-making. Its economic work runs alongside efforts to improve emergency preparedness, recognizing that a former mining town needs a future beyond managing the waste left behind.
Residents have also been given a place to preserve their own account of the town. A museum of Mailuu-Suu’s history and uranium heritage opened in June 2022. It included a recording booth where people could leave memories of local life. The museum was designed to host discussions about radiation safety as well as encourage cultural tourism.
As Mailuu-Suu women’s committee member Danakan Primkulova told Gizmodo in 2021: “Instead of being afraid, we’re trying to do something about it.”
For Mailuu-Suu, the immediate task remains substantial: securing waste beside a river and moving the material that cannot safely stay there. The 2032 timetable sets an expected endpoint for remediation. Keeping the restored sites safe will remain a matter of public responsibility long afterward.
