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MinE 422: Water Resources:

Younger, Banwart and Hedin. 2002. Mine Water. Hydrology, Pollution, Remediation.

Water quality Water quantity Remediation strategies

Impacts of mining on water


Traditionally only really interested in dewatering (MinE 413, 414) Now more interested in prediction, prevention and remediation of issues Source of impacts:
The mining process Mineral processing operations Dewatering activities Seepage from waste rock piles and tailings Flooded mine workings Discharge of untreated waters

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Impacts of mining on water


Impacts from the mining process:
Underground usually minimal unless flow paths are altered
Effects subsidence, aquifer capacity (increase/decrease)

Impacts from dewatering:


Decreased flow in streams (if hydraulically connected to the groundwater source) Water table lowering (irrigation wells) Subsidence Usually local and predictable

Seepage:
May contain concentrations exceeding allowed levels

Flooded mine workings


Water table rebounds after mining Often the largest long term issue Water quality affected, surface/ground water pollution Potential subsidence as saturated pillars weaken Re-activation of faults as pore pressure increases and frictional resistance along fault decreases

Determining volume of water


From surface sources (i.e. rivers)
Calculating water flow: Determine profile of stream and average velocity Can determine flow rate (Q) Measure velocity at 3/5 of the stream depth (below mid way)

Q=vA or consider the floating orange test


surface velocity * 0.8

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Mine water
Surface:
From precipitation (consider infiltration) From ground water (see Darcy's law) From streams (hopefully not)

Underground (see Darcy's law)


From ground water Drill to see if there is water May need to grout advances

Determining volume of water


From groundwater seepage (will not consider seepage from mine into surrounding rock, you will be dewatering) Consider average permeability
Incorrect, should build a model then consider something like MODFLOW http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/gwsoftware/modflow.html

Our paradigm is centered around conservation of mass


(Water in) (water out) = ( volume of water stored) Qe-Ql= Vs Qe is the water entering the system (m3/s) Ql is the water leaving the system (m3/s) Vs is the change in volume of water stored in the system (m3/s) Relates to surface or ground water (easy for surface) Surface water water level increases/decreases in study system Groundwater more complicated

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Determining volume of water


Groundwater:
Normally consider unit depth of water (could then multiply by area) Consider adding a unit depth of water ( say 1mm) to a given volume of rock Ratio of water added to rise in water level is the specific yield (Sy) of a given rock If 1.3mm of infiltrating rainwater enters a rock mass with Sy =0.2, the rise in the water table is 1.3mm/0.2=6.5mm infiltrating rainwater is amount of water after evaporation/surface runoff/plant uptake Sy is related to the effective porosity of the rock Some example values from Young (multiply by thickness):
Clay 9.8x10-3 1/m Slit 9.8x10-4 1/m medium sand/fine gravel 9.9x10-5 1/m Coarse sand/med gravel/highly fissured bedrock 1.05x10-5 1/m Coarse gravel/moderately fissured rock 1.6x10-6 1/m Unfissured rock 7.5x10-7 1/m

Use to determine water table rise due to storm events if important

Determining volume of water


But we are interested in flow rates into the mine Darcys Law:
Q=(k/u) * A * (P1-P2)/L or Q=K A i Q=flow rate (right angle to the hydraulic gradient) (m3/s) Permeability (m2) A=cross sectional area through which we are calculating flow P is pressure (Pa) u is viscosity (Pa s) Normally consider q not Q, q in m/s q is the flux q=k/u*(P1-P2)/L i = hydraulic gradient ( head/length)

Calculate/determine average permeability (NOT EASY)


Parallel/linear flow, heterogeneities, effective, changes over time, uncertainty, difficult tests (material expands), depends on water saturation and other phases present, kv/kh Better than nothing

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Determining volume of water


Interaction between ground water and surface water Removal of evaporated water (underground) ignored, consider in MinE 407
May not be negligible

Example Calculation
Consider all water flow from coal seam Hydraulic conductivity of the coal is 0.15m/d Width of the coal seam is 100m Pressure difference measured 500m from the opening is 5m. Viscosity of water is 0.001 Pa s What is the initial flux (q)? And flow rate? If this keeps up for one day, what is the volume of water?

3m

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Too simplistic

Dr. Ye Zhang Assistant Professor Geological Modeling & Simulation University of Wyoming

Can reduce to 2D sometimes

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Water make and water budgets


Water make: total volume of water entering the mine Determine an overall water budget

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Water make and water budgets

Water Quality

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Water Quality
Provincial and Federal regulations, for example lead:

use Pb (g/L) Food Processing Industry 10 Recreation 10 Irrigation for neutral of alkaline soils 200 Irrigation for other soils 400 Livestock Water Supply 100 Marine and Estuarine Aquatic Life 140 Wildlife 100 Freshwater Aquatic Life 3 Drinking 10

Background of Metals in Canadian Surface Waters


Element/Substance Lithium (mg/L) Lead (g/L) Iron (g/L) Hardness (mg/L) Freshwater (g/L) <2-190 (3) <1-50 (3) 1-90000 (670) 2-2000 (<80) <20-2600 (100) <100 (40) 1-80 (6) <1-47 (0.2) 1-23 (1) 0.1-10 (0.2) <10-3000 (10) 1-50 (1) <1-9000 (2) 2-9300 (400)

( ) = world streams averages

Fluorides (g/L) Cyanides (g/L) Copper (g/L) Cobalt (g/L) Chromium (g/L) Cadmium (g/L) Boron (g/L) Arsenic (g/L) Antimony (g/L) Aluminum (g/L)

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Background of Metals in Canadian Surface Waters


Zinc (g/L) Vanadium (g/L) Uranium (g/L) Thallium (g/L) Sulfide (mg/L) Sulfate (mg/L) Silver (g/L) Selenium (g/L) Phosphate (g/L) Nitrate (mg/L) Nickel (g/L) Molybdenum (g/L) Mercury (g/L) Manganese (g/L) 1-1200 (10) 0.3-200 (1) 0.02-90 (0.04) <5-100 0.02-0.1 (0.07) 1-3000 (4) <5-10 (0.3) 0.01-5 (0.2) <1-500 (20) <5 (0.24) <1-280 (0.3) 0.03-10 (0.8) <0.005-0.24 (0.07) 1-4800 (5)

( ) = world streams averages

Canadian guidelines
How to calculate: No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level (NOAEL) is the highest dose in a toxicity study that does not result in any observed adverse effect. Lowest-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level (LOAEL) is the lowest dose in a toxicity study that result in any observed adverse effect. Data from Dose-Response relationship have been used to protect people against the toxic effects from chemicals Threshold is the dose of the chemical below which it is believed that there will be no adverse effect on nearly all exposed individuals.

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Canadian guidelines
TDI - Tolerable Daily Intake (formerly ADI) is the amount of a substance from all sources that can be consumed by an adult without any increased risk to health based on current knowledge. TDI is derived dividing the NOAEL (or sometimes the LOAEL) by uncertainty factor Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) is derived from TDI based on an average daily consumption of 1.5 L of drinking water by a 70-kg adult (in 1978 it was assumed 2 L of daily consumption). Guideline value: GV = (TDI*bw*P)/C
Where: TDI=(NOAEL or LOAEL)/uncertainty factor Bw = body weight P=fraction of the TDI allocated to drinking water C=daily drinking water consumption

Health Canada, 2001. Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.


Example: Guideline for Boron calculated by WHO - World Health Organization Rationale: Testicular lesions have been observed in rats, mice, and dogs exposed to boric acid or borax in food or drinkingwater for short- and long-term oral exposures. In a developmental toxicity (decreased fetal body weight) study in rats, the NOAEL was 9.6 mg of boron per kg of body weight per day. Uncertainty factor (UF) is judged to be 10 6 = 60. The value of 10 for interspecies variation (animals to humans) was adopted because of lack of toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic data to allow deviation from this default value. Available toxicokinetic data support reduction of the default value for intraspecies (between individuals) then the total uncertainty factor for intraspecies variation is 6.

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Health Canada, 2001. Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.


TDI = 9.6mg/60 = 0.16mg of boron per kg of body weight. bw = 60 kg for adults, 10 kg for children, 5 kg for infants P = 0.1 (10%) (just 10% of the TDI is through water, then other pathways must be more important) C = 2 litres for adults, 1 litre for children, 0.75 litre for infants GV = (TDI x bw x P)/C (GV) WHO = (0.16 x 60 x 0.1)/2 =0.48 ~ 0.5 mg/L (GV) Canadian = (0.0175 x 70 x 0.2)/1.5 = 0.2 mg/L of B Conventional water treatment does not significantly remove boron. Available practicable treatment technology is inadequate to reduce boron concentrations in Canadian drinking water supplies to less than 5 mg/L On this basis, an interim maximum acceptable concentration (IMAC) of 5 mg/L has been established. This IMAC will be reviewed periodically in light of new data.

Standards
The calculated GV was 0.5 mg/L (WHO) and 0.2 mg/L (Health Canada) but the adopted is 5 mg/L 0.12mg/L in beer (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US) Dont drink water, drink beer!

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Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality


Canadian MAC or IMAC (g/L) n.a. n.a. 50 250,000 5 10 5000 n.a. 1000 25 6 100 World Health Organization MAC (g/L)

Cobalt Chromium (VI) Chromium (III) Chloride Cadmium Bromate Boron Beryllium Barium Arsenic Antimony Aluminum

50 3 500 700 10 5

Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality


Canadian MAC or IMAC (g/L) 6.5 to 8.5 45,000 n.a. n.a. 1 50 10 300 1500 200 1000 World Health Organization MAC (g/L) 50,000 20 70 1 500 10 1500 70

pH Nitrate Nickel Molybdenum Mercury Manganese Lead Iron Fluoride Cyanide Copper

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Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality


Canadian MAC or IMAC (g/L) 5000 n.a. 20 1 NTU 500,000 50 500,000 200,000 10 World Health Organization MAC (g/L)

Zinc Vanadium Uranium Turbidity Total Dissolved Solids Sulfide (as H 2S) Sulfate Sodium Selenium

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Permits for Mines


Metal mines (except placer miners) discharging more than 50 m3/day of effluents are submitted to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations (MMER) The MMER (2002) require metal mines to undertake Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM). The MMER apply to effluent from all final discharge point (FDPs) at a mine site. A FDP is defined in the Regulations as a point beyond which the mine no longer exercises control over the quality of the effluent. The MMER guidelines are much higher than the Canadian Water Quality Guidelines (CWQG) for Protection of Aquatic Life. For example total As in the MMER is 0.5 mg/L and in CWQG is 0.005 mg/L.

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Permits for Mines


This is because the sampling points for MMER are at the FDP (end of the pipe) and the MMER is based on lethality of trout in aquarium tests. Dilution is considered as a way to reduce metals concentration in water. This has generated many protests and amendments on the MMER.

MMER (2002)

Source: Metal Mining Effluent Regulations http://www.ec.gc.ca/nopp/docs/regs/mmer/mmer.pdf

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