Sumsar is a village in

Chatkal District Chatkal ( ky, Чаткал району) is a district of Jalal-Abad Region in western Kyrgyzstan. The administrative seat lies at Kanysh-Kyya. Its area is , and its resident population was 28,625 in 2021. Geography The district occupies high-a ...

of Jalal-Abad Region of

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

. Its population was 2,802 in 2021. Until 2012 it was an

urban-type settlement Urban-type settlementrussian: посёлок городско́го ти́па, translit=posyolok gorodskogo tipa, abbreviated: russian: п.г.т., translit=p.g.t.; ua, селище міського типу, translit=selyshche mis'koho typu, ab ...

.Law 27 September 2012 No. 168 on the transformation of individual urban settlements of the Kyrgyz Republic and relating them to the category of village or city
/ref> It is situated in the foothills of the

Chatkal Range Chatkal Range is a range in the Western Tian Shan that borders Ferghana Valley from northwest. The length of the range is 225 km, and it is up to 30 km wide. The highest peak is Avletim (4503 m elevation). Northern slopes are steep and sh ...

. A

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

mine was located in Sumsar. The mine was exploited by the Sumsar company who also operated a

uranium mine Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. Over 50 thousand tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account f ...

in neighbouring

Shekaftar Shekaftar ( ky, Шекафтар) is a village in the south of Jalal-Abad Region, Kyrgyzstan. It is part of Chatkal District. Its population was 2,217 in 2021. It lies about from the border with Uzbekistan. A uranium mine was located in Shekaftar ...

. The company left behind three huge

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

site containing toxic waste: Most of Tailings No. 1 have slipped into the Sumsar river. Tailings No. 3 have never been covered, leaving a fine dust exposed to the wind. Tailngs No. 2 is also in need of repairs. The mill tailings of the lead and zinc milling in Sumsar and the low-grade uranium ore heaps in

need an urgent remedial action because the legacy sites became chronic sources of toxic and radioactive contaminants for the Sumsar-Say River. The legacy sites are approximately 10–15 km upstream from the northern fringes of the Fergana valley that belongs to the most important agricultural areas of Soviet Central Asia. In early 2016, a joint mission by the NGO Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (''Fondation Suisse de déminage'', FSD) and the Kyrgyzstan Emergency Situations Ministry found that the former Sumsar

and

mining and ore processing area is located in an ecologically very sensitive environment and represents a constant threat of elevated exposures to chemical contaminants for the resident populations in the Sumsar valley."Environmental mission advises Kyrgyzstan on mine rehab strategy"
Ilan Solomons, Cramer Media Staff Writer, in the Mining Weekly, March 11, 2016. Retrieved October 9, 2016

Population

References

Populated places in Jalal-Abad Region {{JalalAbad-geo-stub