Natural Resources Extraction: Stressors and Impact Management - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 148

TABLE 5.1
Arsenic Concentrations Measured in Canadian Mine Tailings

Mine Location Concentration (mg/kg) Reference

Copper mine Murdochville, QC 500 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Gold mine Musselwhite, ON 63 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Copper-zinc mine Val d'Or, QC 270 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Iron mine Mont-Wright, QC <0.70 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Lead-zinc mine Bathurst, NB 2200 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Gold mine Marathon, ON 270 Wang and Mulligan, 2006

Con mine Yellowknife 25,000 Ollson, 1999

Giant mine Yellowknife 4800 Ollson, 1999

Negus Yellowknife 12,500 Ollson, 1999

Rabbit Lake Northern Saskatchewan 56 to 9871 Moldovan et al., 2003

Appelo (2008) provide a comprehensive recounting of the worldwide occurrence of arsenic
together with the geochemistry, problems, and impacts.
Mine tailings and efluents usually contain high concentrations of arsenic and are of
concern as potential sources of environmental contamination. Arsenic occurs naturally in
a wide range of minerals in soils in several forms of inorganic compounds. The most com-
mon arsenic-containing minerals are arsenopyrite or mispickel (FeAsS), realgar (AsS), and
orpiment (As 2 S 3 ). It has been reported, for example, that due to local mining and mineral
processing, the annual total luvial input of arsenic to the Moira Lake in Ontario, Canada,
was approximately 3.5 tonnes (Azcue and Nriagu, 1995).
In mine tailings, arsenic occurs in various forms such as arsenopyrite (FeAsS), arse-
nian pyrite (As-rich FeS 2 ), arsenates, and association with iron oxyhydroxides. Wang and
Mulligan (2004) measured the arsenic contents of six Canadian mine tailings. ICP-MS anal-
yses indicated that the highest arsenic concentrations reached 2200 mg/kg in tailings from
a lead-zinc mine at Bathurst, NB. These and others are shown in Table 5.1. Many other
countries such as Thailand, South Korea, Ghana, Greece, Australia, Poland, the United
Kingdom (Kinniburgh et al., 2003), and the United States have also experienced signii-
cant arsenic contamination associated with mining activities. McCreadie et al. (2000) have
found arsenic concentrations up to 100 mg/L in the porewater extracted from tailings in
the province of Ontario. Donahue and Hendry (2003) showed that dissolved arsenic con-
centrations within the tailings could vary from 9.6 to 71 mg/L. As with the reporting of
Appelo (2008), the reports contained by Bundschuh et al. (2005) provide detailed account-
ing of the occurrence of natural arsenic in groundwater in many different parts of the
world, together with suggested methods for management and remediation of the problem.

5.2.5 Sustainability and Resource Exploitation

It is abundantly clear that the harvesting of nonrenewable natural resources discussed in
this chapter is not going to satisfy “resource sustainability” from the viewpoint of renewal
or regeneration of the natural resource material. Extraction of these resources from the
ground will deplete them, and will therefore fail a key sustainability issue—replenish-
ment or renewal of supply. The primary geoenvironmental engineering concern in this
respect is to (a) apply or implement engineering measures that will minimize and/or