Environmental Reclamation and Mitigation

• Reclamation - Returning the site to the same or nearly the same conditions as it was before the mining began

• Mitigation - a debit and credit system when reclamation isn’t possible. – A company might destroy or severely impair a natural area.  

– If they can't restore, create, or enhance part of this natural area, they are required to purchase a credit from a "mitigation bank." 

– “Bank” is actually a fund established to renew a different area that can be fixed

EX: An example is creating a new wetland to replace one that has been lost to development. 

Environmental Effects can include:

1. LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY from Noise Pollution and Physical Displacement by habitat loss2. EROSION of overburden materials into local water3. CONTAMINATION of GROUNDWATER by chemicals from the mining process and products.•EX: Mercury, Lead, Cadmium – common, highly toxic coal contaminants•EX: ACID RUN-OFF (in the pic to the right):

Iron hydroxide precipitate stains a stream receiving acid drainage from surface coal mining.

Case Study

Acid Rock Drainage (ARD)

caused by a chemical reaction which results in highly acidic

runoff

Leeching of acids destroys ecosystems long after the mines

have closed….

Brittania Beach Copper Mine“The Place Where No Fish Will Go”

(Vancouver, BC)• Cu Mining Started in 1905, closed in 1974• Water in Britannia Creek is extremely clear and transparent

– A pristine environment?– Actually an indication that no living creatures can survive in it…. – Water contains large concentrations of dissolved metals such

as copper, cadmium, iron, and zinc toxic!!!– The water cannot be consumed by humans

• Even though mining has stopped, runoff and rainwater that flow through the mine’s abandoned tunnels combine with oxygen and the high sulfide content of the waste rock to create ARD.

Skouriotissa – Cyprus, Greece

• Copper mine

• Toxic dust contaminates all surrounding air

• High rates of cancer

4. Formation of SINKHOLES

•

5. Coal Fires• Fires are burning in thousands of underground coal

seams from Pennsylvania to Mongolia– releasing toxic gases– adding millions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to

the atmosphere – baking the earth until vegetation shrivels and the land sinks.

• similar to those that smoldered for months beneath the wreckage of the World Trade Center,

• Colorado fire that's been burning since 1910• Coal fires can reach temperatures of 1200ºF, so water

dumped on them evaporates instead of putting them out.

• More than forty-five years ago in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a vast honeycomb of coal mines at the edge of the town caught fire.

• 3,700 acres• Underground inferno burning at depths of up to 300

feet, baking surface layers, venting poisonous gases and opening sink holes large enough to swallow people or cars.

• May burn for another 250 years, before it runs out of the coal that fuels it."

A coal seam inside Australia's Burning Mountain has been smoking for over 5,550 years

6. Where to put the OVERBURDEN

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Mining Can Leave the land Mining Can Leave the land scarred and changed foreverscarred and changed forever

7. Abandoned mines

• Until recently, reclamation was not mandatory• When all resources had been secured, land was abandoned, scarred and barren• there are between 700,000 and 800,000 abandoned mines in the US• abandoned industry means abandoned communities (often referred to as “GHOST TOWNS”).• It is estimated that approximately 25% of the abandoned mine lands (AML) sites pose physical safety hazards.

Many Abandoned Mines Become Brownfield or

Superfund SitesBrownfield - piece of land where reuse may

be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

– Clean up and reinvest in these properties – takes development pressures off of

undeveloped, open land– improves and protects the environment.– BROWNFIELD SITES IN NJ

SUPERFUND - environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites.

• Funded through tax dollars by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ( CERCLA) of 1980– This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery

of toxic waste dumps such as Love Canal in the 1970s.

– It allows the EPA to clean up such sites and to compel responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-lead cleanups.

– SUPERFUND SITES IN NJ

Model reclamation project:

• Central West Virginia, 90-acre site • Part of a massive abandoned coal preparation and

waste disposal facility that ceased operation in the 1950’s.

The reclamation plan involved 1. Draining Contaminated water (18-acre water-filled

impoundment) drained and treated 1.5 million gallons of acidic mine water

2. Extinguishing burning refuse 3. Regrading - evening out the surface4. Soil Addition - covering the remaining areas of coal

refuse5. Restoring the stream channel, and construction of

badly needed drainage control structures. 6. Revegetating the entire 90 acres.

• The OSM presented both National and Regional reclamation awards to the West Virginia Abandoned Mine Lands program

Taylor Creek Impoundment

                                    

Taylor Creek Impoundment

                                    

Taylor Creek Impoundment Regrading and Revegetation

                                    

Taylor Creek Impoundment

“Living” Proof that Reclamation Projects

CAN be very successfulModern mining operations must consider reclamation costs when

mining for ore…

When it becomes more expensive to retrieve the ore than can you can profit from selling it, it is no

longer considered to be part of the recoverable amount.

Reclamation remains unpopular because of cost

Unfortunately, many mining sites cannot / will not be

resolved by reclamation, due to

HIGH EXPENSE or

LACK OF TECHNOLOGY.