Twitter

Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines

Who will clean it up?: ​Alberta put a pause on coal. But its footprint remains – by Rob Easton and Joel Dryden (CBC News Calgary – August 25, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

It’s quiet in Coleman, Alta., a historic coal town located within the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, a cluster of five communities along Highway 3 in southwestern Alberta. The downtown brims with symbols of this town’s past. Many historic buildings are boarded up, their futures plainly uncertain. The ruins of the town’s coal plant and coke ovens are still visible a short walk away.

The residents here are used to seeing reporters, given how much coal has been in the news over the past two years, but many are done talking about it. Business owners hesitate to take a public side lest they alienate potential customers.

Read more

Glencore to invest $383 million to fix Horne smelter emissions – by Staff (Mining.com – August 22, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Glencore plans to invest more than C$500 million ($383m) in its Horne smelter located in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, with the aim of improving air quality to reduce its arsenic emissions to 15 ng/m3 within the next five years.

“This transformative project shows that our number one priority is to ensure our teams’ safety et security, as well as that of our neighbouring communities,” said Claude Bélanger, COO of Glencore’s North American copper assets.

Read more

‘Right material’ to efficiently remove mercury from water shows promising results – by Staff (Mining.com – August 17, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Researchers at Drexel University have found the right material to efficiently catch mercury —even at low levels— and clean up contaminated bodies of water. According to lead researcher Masoud Soroush, adsorption —the process of chemically attracting and removing contaminants— seems to be the most promising technology for removing mercury from water, due to its relative simplicity.

“Modern adsorbents, such as resins, mesoporous silica, chalcogenides, and mesoporous carbons, have higher efficiencies than traditional adsorbents, such as activated carbon, clays, and zeolites that have a low affinity toward mercury and low capacities,” Soroush said in a media statement.

Read more

Pope worried about pollution of rivers with mercury used by gold miners in the Amazon – by Bruno Kelly and Anthony Boadle (Mining.com/Reuters – August 9, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Pope Francis will install the first cardinal of Brazil’s Amazon region this month in a sign of his concern for the rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants, the man whom he picked for the role said.

Dom Leonardo Steiner, archbishop of the Brazilian city of Manaus, said in an interview that Francis, the first pope from Latin America, is worried about deforestation, threats to indigenous cultures and pollution of rivers with mercury used by gold miners in the Amazon.

Read more

Glencore Takes Heat in Quebec for Smelter That Spits Out Arsenic – by Mathieu Dion (Bloomberg News – August 10, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Quebec’s public health director took aim at Glencore Plc for toxic emissions at a copper smelter in the province’s northwest, saying the level of pollution must be brought down quickly because of evidence it’s causing increased risk of cancer and other health problems.

The Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, a remote city about 600 kilometers (373 miles) northwest of Montreal, is emitting 165 nanograms of arsenic per cubic meter of air on site, according to a recent study by public health authorities in the Canadian province. That’s 55 times the standard safe level of 3 nanograms.

Read more

Toxic mine pollution has turned Ohio rivers orange. Now it’s being made into paint. – by Chelsea Lee (CNN.com – August 2, 2022)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN)With rolling hills, forests and hiking trails, Southeast Ohio is a haven for lovers of the outdoors. Yet cutting through the landscape are countless orange-stained streams, colored by the iron oxide pollution that has seeped into them from abandoned coal mines.

These streams are contaminated with a toxic sludge known as acid mine drainage (AMD) — the overflow of highly acidic wastewater from underground mines, created when water comes into contact with exposed mining rocks.

Read more

Glencore’s 95-year-old copper smelter in Quebec is a prized asset. It should pay to clean up its act – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – July 19, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any Canadian who grew up in a mining town knows of the trade-offs that come with relying on a single major employer involved in the metals business. For residents of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., the ups and downs of the commodities cycle have defined their town’s existence since prospector Edmund Horne staked the first copper claims in the region a century ago, leading to the 1922 founding of Noranda Inc.

The mining colossus, whose rise was intricately tied to Canada’s economic development, was eventually absorbed by Swiss-based multinational Glencore in 2013. But its name lives on in the town where it got its start.

Read more

Federal funding now available to 20 states & Navajo Nation for abandoned mine clean up – by Shondiin Silversmith (Tucson Sentinel- July 22, 2022)

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/

More than 20 states and the Navajo Nation can now apply for $725 million in funding for abandoned mine lands projects to help communities that have suffered environmental hazards and pollution caused by coal mining.

“Through this program, we are investing in coal communities through job creation — including for current and former coal workers — and economic revitalization, all while addressing harmful environmental impacts from these legacy developments,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a press release.

Read more

American environmentalists take aim at B.C. mines – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver- July 14, 2022)

https://biv.com/

Environmental groups want tailings ponds in B.C. banned

American environmental groups are taking aim at B.C.’s “industrial gold rush” and calling on President Joe Biden to call on the Canadian government to ban tailings dams.

Four American environmental groups are pointing to a report commissioned by the BC Mining Law Reform and SkeenaWild Conservation Trust that analyzes the risks of tailings pond failures in B.C. They are zeroing in on two mines in particular – one already in operation, Copper Mountain in southern B.C., and one proposed, the KSM mine in northwestern B.C.

Read more

BHP loses appeal to multibillion lawsuit over Samarco disaster – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 8, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

BHP (ASX: BHP) said on Friday it had lost an appeal in a London court seeking to block an over £5 billion ($6bn-plus) lawsuit by 200,000 Brazilians over a deadly dam failure in Brazil seven years ago.

The group claim, one of the largest in British legal history, alleged that BHP, the world’s largest miner by market value, ignored safety warnings as the dam’s capacity was repeatedly increased by raising its height – and disregarded cracks that pointed to early signs of rupture.

Read more

Province releases risk ranking of potentially contaminated old mines – by Frances Willick (CBC News Nova Scotia – July 4, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/

Most of the sites with the highest risk scores are former gold mining sites

The province has released its risk ranking of potentially contaminated historical mine sites — a year and a half after it said it would.

The list includes 69 sites strewn across the province that were once home to a range of mining operations dating back to the 1800s. The CBC requested the ranking under freedom-of-information rules.

Read more

Barrick facing new allegations of contamination near Veladero mine in Argentina – by Gabriel Friedland (Financial Post – June 13, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Toronto-headquartered Barrick Gold Corp. is once again facing accusations that its high-altitude Veladero mine in Argentina is releasing toxins into the local water supply — after similar incidents years ago spurred the country to pass legislation and forced the mine to temporarily close.

Located in the Argentinian Andes, Veladero is operated by Barrick but it is jointly owned on a 50-50 basis with China’s Shandong Gold. The mine has faced criticism related to toxic spills in water dating back to at least 2015.

Read more

Tapping mineral wealth in mining waste could offset damage from new green economy mines – by Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Kamini Bhowany, Kristy Guerin, Laura Jackson and Partha Narayan Mishra (The Conversation – May 30, 2022)

https://theconversation.com/

To go green, the world will need vast quantities of critical minerals such as manganese, lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements. But to some environmentalists, mining to save the planet is a hard pill to swallow if it leads to damage to pristine areas.

The good news is that in many cases, the mining for these minerals has already been done. After Australia’s major miners dig up iron ore, billions of tonnes of earth and rock are left over. Hidden in these rock piles and tailing dams are minerals vital to high tech industries of today and tomorrow.

Read more

Ecological impact of Mount Polley mine disaster confirmed by new study – by Winston Szeto (CBC News British Columbia – May 25, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Research shows higher levels of metals in invertebrates taken from Polley and Quesnel lakes

A newly published scientific study confirms the deep ecological impact of the Mount Polley mine disaster in B.C.’s Cariboo region nearly eight years ago.

The study, published last week in the academic journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research, shows small invertebrates taken from lake water affected by the tailings spill disaster had a higher concentration of copper and other metals than those taken from unaffected lake water.

Read more

Why Lithium Mining For EV Batteries Should Be Our ‘Absolute Last Resort’ – by Kea Wilson (Streets Blog USA – May 3, 2022)

https://usa.streetsblog.org/

Lithium mining is having a devastating impact on local and indigenous communities as well as ecosystems around the globe, and reducing dependence on automobiles must be a key part of our strategy to curb the damage, a new report says.

According to a new analysis from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the rapid expansion of the electric vehicle battery market is driving a boom in demand for lithium carbonate, a synthesized compound whose key component — lithium itself — is derived from just a tiny handful of natural deposits located throughout the world.

Read more