Water Quality Of The Mine Drainage Running Into The Afon Goch North

Once these mines were abandoned water slowly began to fill these mines. The water came in contact with all of the leftover minerals, including sulfide, and chemicals began to dissolve into the water. This process of dissolving chemicals into the water essentially turned the water into acid (1). Once the mines finally filled, water began to pour out of the mines into the surrounding area, mostly into a body of water now known as “Tar Creek” (1). This creek then spread the contaminated water throughout the community and into numerous water sources.

1) The remedy chosen must attain a degree of cleanup that assures the protection of human health and environment. 2) The hazardous substances that will remain after the cleanup, they must meet the applicable and/or relevant and appropriate requirements under federal and state law (ARARs). 3) The remedy chosen must utilize permanent solutions and alternative treatment technologies or resource recovery technologies to the maximum extent applicable. 4) There must be cost effective response, taking into consideration total long-and short-term costs of the actions. And 5) It must be in accordance with the NCP to a practicable

Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal in power plants and is composed mainly of aluminum and silicon oxides. This ash is commonly stored away in dump sites, only to leach out solutions of concentrated toxic heavy metals. Such issues are detrimental to the health of water systems, posing both a human and environmental health risk. However, there are solutions to this problem. Coal ash possesses unique chemical properties that allow for the remediation of other environmental concerns, such as the treatment of soil polluted with heavy metals, the removal of nutrients from wastewater, and the remediation of acid mine drainage in streams.

I would have to say that from the reading that it can be very harmful for the coal mining chemicals to seep into the ground into our drinking water.

The cleanup is a three-phase plan, estimated to remove more than 99% of the PAH mass from the area, which has begun and will hopefully undo the previous generations of damage. Phase one is building a box to contain the contamination. Upon completion of the first phase, there will be a double steel-walled barricade surrounding contaminated sediment. Phase two involves of dredging the polluted deposits from the adjacent areas and placing them within the enclosure. The final phase of the project encompasses removing the water from the suppression area and placing a waterproof cap on the facility, which is anticipated to have a 200 year life span, to seal in the chemicals.

The families that live near the mine also face being diagnosed with dangerous side effects. Since the ground becomes polluted with the chemicals, most homes in the surrounding area don’t have running water because the aquifers are polluted by said chemicals that originate from the mine. And the air becomes toxic also, toxic levels of arsenic, fluorine, mercury, and selenium is emitted by coal fires, entering the air and the food chain of those living nearby. These pollutants affect the water also, making it dangerous to any living life form. It causes deformities and creates birth defects if ingested into the body (Breitenender 2). And to an extent, causes death if the water is drunk regularly. It can go unnoticed also if people don’t check their water. And if a person is unfortunate enough to live near these areas, then he likely has no running water due to the pollution of his local aquifer. People are deprived of a vital source to live and they travel far to get water. And these areas are arid which means water is a necessary

If the rivers are flowing though a mine store the water in the catchment have increased levels of calcium, magnesium, carbonates and other ions associated with mining ores

The Mining Act does a very good job at protecting certain aspects of the environment such as ensuring that over exploitation of minerals does not occur, or making it mandatory to have a plan in place for closing the mine as well as assuring that there is money to do so. Although there are many things that this Act does right, there are also areas in which there are issues and should be improved. One of the first issues pertaining to this Act is the impact that it fails to mitigate regarding water quality. In areas where mining development occurs, the water quality is drastically affected and a study found that “water from waste rock piles has an ionic profile distinct from unimpacted catchments” (Carey, Wellen, & Shatilla, 2015), meaning that in order to mitigate the impact of the runoff measures must be put in place to limit it. Secondly, the Act does not involve

Morocco is rich in mineral deposits and the third largest phosphate rock producers. Morocco has vast reserves of phosphate rocks, copper, cobalt, anthracite coal, silver, gold, iron ore, zinc, manganese etc. The quality of water in the areas surrounding mining sites is compromised during and after the mining with harmful agents such as Arsenic (As), Lead (Pb), Zinc(Zn) etc.Due to this water pollution and the fact that water resources are limited, a large number of people and livestock in villages close to the mining sites are affected with serious life threatening diseases. In such areas thirty percent of the wastewater that is untreated is discharged directly into natural water bodies. As an example, the Sebou basin that constitutes

The main pollutant of surface water in the mid-Atlantic region is Acid Mine Drainage, AMD, also called Abandoned Mine Drainage. AMD is a nonpoint source pollution that has degraded more than 4,500 stream miles, in just the mid-Atlantic region, due to the drainage of metal-rich water from mining activities (Jacobs). The runoff is extremely acidic due to the exposure of pyrite containing rocks, a sulfur bearing mineral (FeS2), during mining activities, and the chemical reactions associated with the contact of air and water with such rocks. As a result of such chemical reactions, sulfuric acid (H2SO4) is produced. Several chemical reactions take place and are as follows:

I learned that mines were abandoned and in this case we have the responsible helping out. In other cases like the Gold King Mine in Colorado that it was used in the early 1900’s, the responsible that abandoned the mines were from Canada and are no were to be found. The problem with these mines is that when they extract all the uranium and there is no need for the mines, these mines need to be abandoned and closed. Unfortunately, there was no cleanup process when the mines were abandoned. Leaving the areas contaminated and the water from the rain transporting the contamination to other areas. 100 years ago, there was no standard on how to properly abandon a mine. Now days, the EPA and the state environmental departments are responsible to enforce the proper abandonment procedures and make sure the closure will not contaminate nearby areas or the water used for drinking, crops, and other human and animal uses. The runoff of the mine contamination can increase the total dissolve solids (TDS) in the nearby waters, making it non usable for human consumption and fish

Remediating Agricultural Water Contamination: Problem, Solution, and Barriers Paper Student Name COMM 2367 MWF 9:10 Instructor Name September 29, 2012

The project shall install wastewater treatment system. The wastewater shall be treated to meet the effluent standard, then discharging out of the power plant and shall be connected by OWNER at 1m out of boundary of the power plant.

The second step of water treatment process is aeration. At the aerator, raw water is mixed with air. The aeration process helps to provide oxygen to the raw water which is needed for the oxidation process of dissolved iron and manganese in order for it to precipitate and therefore enables its removal through filtration (SAJ Holdings Sdn Bhd., n.d.). Wormleaton and Tsang (2000) stated that for water treatment process and also natural streams, it is essential to maintain a high amount of dissolved oxygen. Aeration also provides the escape of dissolved gases, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide to reduce the corrosiveness of water, thus controls the tastes and odors of the water (Shun, 2007). Groundwater with high dissolved carbon dioxide levels or high concentrations of iron and manganese commonly require aeration as well as water drawn from reservoirs that is low in dissolved oxygen.

Acid mine drainage is most common with hardrock mines where metal ore is bound together with sulfur. The increased acidity created from acid mine drainage has a series of negative effects, depending on the severity of change in the pH level. The acid mine drainage creates inhospitable environments to aquatic life in river systems and former mine sites, with the exception of "extremophile" bacteria (Coil, D., McKittrick, E., and Higman, B., 2010). Acid mine drainage can severely degrade the quality of the water, especially if it's a essential water supply.