| Abstract |
Air and water pollutants are generated during the conversion of naturally occurring minerals into suitable forms for use in chemical and fertilizer production. These minerals are barite, borates, fluorspar, lithium minerals, mineral pigments, phosphate rock, potash, salt, sodium sulfate, sulfur, and trona ore. The representative plant size for each mineral, except borates, was determined by dividing the total annual production by the number of plants. (In the case of borates, one plant which accounts for over 75% of annual production was considered representative.) The hazard ratio for respirable particulates emitted from the representative source ranges from 0.00005 for sulfur to 0.9 for potash. Hazard ratios for water pollutants were developed only for the phosphate rock industry as it was the only industry for which complete information was available concerning river flow rate and concentration. For a representative source, the hazard ratios of elemental phosphorous, fluoride, and total suspended solids (TSS) are 0.061, 0.051, and 0.0025, respectively. The four significant wastewater problem areas in the mining and beneficiation of minerals in the chemical and fertilizer industry are mine water drainage, wastewater from the fluorspar industry, phosphate rock slimes, and sulfur bleedwater brines. The Florida phosphate rock slimes problem may well be the most important of all fertilizer production problems. Suspended solids are the principal pollutant in chemical and fertilizer wastewater discharges. While a variety of treatment technologies are available for removing suspended solids, only a small number are widely used. |
