#mining pollution

[wachinyeya]

Turning mine waste into healthy soil

Tailings, the waste left after extracting precious and critical minerals, often contain harmful chemicals and heavy metals that can pollute

[rjzimmerman]

Drip drip drip.......another assault on the environment and a financial benefit tossed to the mining industry.

In this Aug. 12, 2015 photo, water flows through a series of retention ponds built to contain and filter out heavy metals and chemicals from the Gold King mine chemical accident in the spillway about 1/4 mile downstream from the mine outside Silverton, Colo. (Brennan Linsley / AP)

Excerpt:

President Donald Trump's administration announced Friday that it won't require mining companies to prove they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution, despite an industry legacy of abandoned mines that have fouled waterways across the U.S.

The move came after mining groups and Western-state Republicans pushed back against a proposal under former President Barack Obama to make companies set aside money for future cleanup costs.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said modern mining practices and state and federal rules already in place adequately address the risks from mines that are still operating.

The U.S. mining industry has a long history of abandoning contaminated sites and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for cleanups. Thousands of shuttered mines leak contaminated water into rivers, streams and other waterways, including hundreds of cases in which the EPA has intervened, sometimes at huge expense.

The EPA spent $1.1 billion on cleanup work at abandoned hard-rock mining and processing sites across the U.S. from 2010 to 2014. Since 1980, at least 52 mines and mine processing sites using modern techniques had spills or other releases of pollution, according to documents released by the EPA last year.

In 2015, an EPA cleanup team accidentally triggered a 3-million gallon spill of contaminated water from Colorado's inactive Gold King mine, tainting rivers in three states with heavy metals including arsenic and lead.

The Obama-era rule was issued last December under court order after environmental groups sued the government to enforce a long-ignored provision in the 1980 federal Superfund law.

"It's galling to see the Trump administration side with industry polluters over the America taxpayer," said Bonnie Gestring with Earthworks, one of the plaintiffs in the case. "We'll see them back in court," she added.

The proposal applied to hard-rock mining, which includes precious metals, copper, iron, lead and other ores. Coal mines already were required to provide assurances that they'll pay for cleanups under a 1977 federal law

[lmsintmedia]

Thousands Suffer from Lead Poisoning in Ebonyi State: Health and Environmental Crisis Unfolds

Lead poisoning in Enyigba and Ameka communities of Ebonyi State has caused widespread health issues and environmental degradation. Discover the causes, effects, and urgent solutions. In the Enyigba and Ameka communities of Ebonyi State, the vast deposits of lead, which should be a source of wealth, have instead brought severe health challenges and environmental hazards. Lead contamination has…

Thousands Suffer from Lead Poisoning in Ebonyi State: Health and Environmental Crisis Unfolds

[voldymort101]

I have two 3hr classes on Mondays and they both make me really hate humans as a species.

[wotfigo]

Australia is the Worlds Largest Exporter of Carbon Pollution in the Form of Coal. It Now Wants to Export Even More & is Willing to Destroy Large Areas of the Great Barrier Reef to Achieve this.

Great Barrier Reef's 'unprecedented' threat from dredging, dumping ____________________________________________ The impact of dredging and dumping sediment on theGreat Barrier Reef has been far greater than the mining industry has claimed, with nearly 150m tonnes of new dredging set to take place in the reef’s waters, a study shows.The report collated by the Australian Marine Conservation Society states that the reef is under “unprecedented” threat from the proposed expansion of coastal ports and industrial development. Planned expansion of ports, or the creation of new ones, at sites including Gladstone, the Fitzroy Delta, Abbot Point and Townsville, would involve dredging 149m tonnes of seabed to allow large ships to access ports.The society’s report warns that the dredging process is dangerous to marine life. Worse, should this sediment be dumped within the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area, corals and seagrasses would be damaged, impacting animals such as dugongs and sea turtles.The amount of damage caused to the reef by coastal development and dredging has proved highly contentious after the government’s decision to approve five million tonnes of sediment being dumped within the reef’s marine park, as part of the expansion of Abbot Point, near Bowen.The mining industry has pointed to research showing the degradation of the reef is down to cyclones, bleaching and coral-eating starfish, rather than dredging. The Queensland Resource Council has branded groups such as WWF as dishonest, launching a series of TV ads to argue its case.But in an assessment of the health of the Great Barrier Reef released last week, Unesco said it had “concern”over the dredging program, querying why work on ports had begun before a long-term strategic plan was in place.The society’s report states that previous dredging, such as at Hay Point in 2006, damaged corals, contrary to industry claims. From; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/great-barrier-reefs-unprecedented-threat-from-dredging-dumping

[wotfigo]

Toxic Sludge Tailing Dams Getting Bigger & Failing More Often Causing Massive Environmental & Fresh Water Damage. ______________________________________ The Risky Rise of the Dams From; http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-13/the-risky-rise-of-the-dams# ________________________________________ A massive mining wastewater spill in the interior of British Columbia highlights a new global trend: tailing dams that hold waste are not only getting bigger, but posing greater risks to watersheds and communities downstream.Drawing upon recent industry reports and presentations made by engineers living in the province, it's clear that the complexities of the industry have multiplied and with them, risks to water are escalating.Increased global mining production of substances such as iron ore, gold, copper and nickel along with rising metal prices has tripled the value of the industry from $200 billion to $600 billion over the last decade.But due to declining ore quality, the sheer volume of waste produced by the industry, which can contain substances such as arsenic, lead and cyanide, is increasing.Every year, the industry digs and moves as much solid rock (several thousand million tonnes per year) as all earthen materials transported by natural geological processes, such as landslides and erosion.Because of the challenge of peak metals and high global demand, the mining industry faces a number of somber risks, as reported by Andrew M. Robertson of Robertson GeoConsultants at a recent mining conference.It must not only dig deeper for poorer quality ores, but create larger and taller dams of tailings waste.As a result, the dykes that contain the waste have been growing higher and larger every year. The average height of a tailings dam has grown from 120 metres in the 1960s to 240 metres today. They also contain more water than ever before, reported Robertson.In addition, the growing size of mines means that the industry is "increasingly dominating regional water supply and quality. Our structures to control water have become large and threatening," reads Robertson'spresentation.Every 30 years, the volume of water and tailings produced by the industry increases tenfold, said Robertson. Meanwhile, the area of waste deposits increases fivefold and the height of dams grows twofold. "We are not dam building -- we are terraforming," he told a Tailings and Mine Waste conference in 2011.

[wotfigo]

The Curse Of Coal Destroying Borneo (East Kalimantan) Rain Forest.

Swallowed by coal: UK profits from Indonesia's destructive mining industry

Funded by British investment, mining brings deforestation, health problems and pollution to Samarinda, part of 'coal's last frontier'

Just 30 years ago, Samarinda was a sleepy village surrounded by deep equatorial forest and known mostly for its traditionally woven sarongs. Today it is the largest city in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province, with nearly 1 million inhabitants. It is also the centre of the burgeoning coalindustry, surrounded by more than 1,000 mines and concessions.

The forests have gone, opencast mines circle the city and giant barges pass down the river Mahakam every few minutes taking coal to India, Japan, Korea and beyond. Nearly 70% of the city has been handed to coal companies as concessions. In theory, Samarinda could be swallowed by coal.

The city and most of East Kalimantan is unrecognisable to those who left some three decades ago, but now, say Indonesian and British campaigners, coal mining is poised to rip through central Kalimantan, or Borneo, a few hundred miles west of Samarinda. Mining companies such as BHP Billiton are moving in with money raised in London to exploit some of the world's largest deposits in what is being called coal's last frontier. So far, 449 exploration concessions have been awarded, covering 15,313 square miles (39,662 sq km) – about 25% of the area of the whole densely forested province famed for its tribespeople, remoteness and wildlife.

According to the World Development Movement and its partner in Indonesia, the East Kalimantan Mining Advocacy Network, mining and the infrastructure needed to extract and export coal from the heart of Borneo will inevitably ruin vast, heavily forested areas at great cost to people living there and the environment.

Apart from the millions of tonnes of carbon that will be emitted from the burning of the coal, massive railway projects are planned, and giant pits and waste dumps will be needed to support the industry. This will lead to pollution of rivers and land-grabbing during the digging of vast open-cast pits each covering several square miles, as people flock there in search for jobs.

The pace of the mining is speeding up in central Kalimantan. More than 8.5m tonnes of coal were dug last year compared with less than 1m tonnes in 2005; and by 2020 companies could be extracting more than 20m tonnes a year. Indo Met, the largest concession in central Kalimantan, owned by BHP Billiton, covers 350,000 hectares and is thought to have coal reserves of more than 774m tonnes.

Where mining has started, people complain of air pollution, flooding, and land grabs. "We receive all the negatives of coal but very little of the benefits. We will receive the full impact of the waste when they start dumping. The forest will be gone and we will lose our rubber trees," Erly Aisha, a Dayak leader from Maruwei village, told WDM.

From; http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/oct/30/coal-mining-uk-profits-indonesia

[wotfigo]

Colorado Has Thousands Of Oil & Gas Wells Flooded And Leaking Toxic Chemicals Into The Flood Waters.

Thousands of oil and gas wells underwater in Colorado – State monitoring 10 separate oil and gas spills

In the wake of unprecedented massive flooding over thousands of square miles in Colorado, government officials and private companies are rushing to secure the region's heavy concentration of oil and natural gas wells, and prevent dangerous chemicals and toxic waste from contaminating the region's water.  (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Oil Spills.")

Late Wednesday, reports emerged that at least 5,250 gallons of crude oil had seeped into the South Platte River in the north-central part of the state. The oil was leaking from damaged Anadarko Petroleum tanks. "Anadarko is responding and has absorbent booms in the water," said a statement from the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Another report noted that Noble Energy was seeing a "limited amount of natural gas" leaking from one of its wells. (See related story: "As the Arctic Melts, a Race to Test Oil Spill Cleanup Technology.")

Inspectors have yet to reach many of the well sites, in part because many roads remain inaccessible, according to Todd Hartman, a spokesman for the Colorado DNR.

"You have operations that are entirely underwater," Hartman said.

From; http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2013/09/thousands-of-oil-and-gas-wells.html