Everything you need to know about mining and water pollution

Posted by Steve Martin on January 27th, 2021

Since mining causes a lot of water pollution, mine water treatment technologies in Australia are essential on any mining site. Mining affects water through water pollution from discharged effluent and seepage from waste rock impoundments and heavy use of freshwater in processing ore. Mining threatens sources of water on which we depend. Water is the mining’s most common casualty. There is a growing awareness of mining activities’ environmental legacy that has been undertaken with very little concern for the environment. We have paid a very high price for our everyday use of minerals. Mining consumes water resources.

Negative impacts of mining

There have been a lot of improvements to mining practices recently but there is still a significant environmental risk that we need to deal with. Negative impacts of mining can vary from the sedimentation due to poorly build roads during mineral exploration to the disturbance of water during construction of a mining site. Pollution of water can occur from mine waste rock and tailings and this kind of pollution may need to be managed for decades and even centuries after the closure of the mine site. These impacts depend on a lot of factors such as the composition of minerals mined, the local terrain, the skill and knowledge of the miners, the type of technology used and our ability to enforce compliance with the environmental regulations.Mine waste has multiplied as mining companies make a lot of profits from mining. Without implementing mine water treatment technologies, water scarcity will always be a problem near a mine site.

Waste from the mining process

The earth ore may contain valued metals such as copper, gold or other minerals such as coal. In open-pit mining, excavation of large rocks is involved. The excavation is done to extract the desired ore. The mineral ore is then crushed into fine ground tailings for processing. Various chemicals are used in the process of extracting the final product.

For every tone of copper extracted about 99 tons of waste must also be removed. The amount of copper extracted compared to the waste material should also be removed. Gold even produces more waste than copper. This means that mining produces a lot of waste than the mineral being mined.

Water pollution from mining - Acid mine drainage

ARD or acid rock drainage is a natural process where sulphuric acid produced when sulphides present in rocks are exposed to water and air. Acid mine drainage is the same process but it is greatly magnified. When large rock quantities containing sulphide minerals are excavated from open pits, it reacts with oxygen and water to create sulphuric acid. A naturally occurring bacterial known as Thiobacillus ferroxidans may kick in when certain levels of acidity are reached.

The bacterial accelerates the acidification and oxidation process leaching more trace metals from the waste. The acid will continue to leach from the rock as long as the rock is exposed to water and air and until all the sulphides are leached out. This kind of water pollution requires high-level mine water treatment technologies Australia.