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How Metal Partitioning Affects the Remediation Approach of a Mining Impacted Watershed
Citation:
Al-Abed, Souhail R. How Metal Partitioning Affects the Remediation Approach of a Mining Impacted Watershed. Clu-In, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 24, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Mining operations in the Tri-State Mining District left numerous chat piles accumulated nearby the mined sites. The weathering of these piles and the runoff generated metal contamination in the area streams as particulate and dissolved metals for years. Recently, a significant amount of these chat piles was removed along the Spring River watershed and we performed an evaluation of the metal transport in dissolved and particulate forms to assess the impact of the remediation action in the health of the watershed. The focus of this presentation is the use of particulate and dissolved metals data to determine the remedial actions necessary to reduce metal transport towards Empire Lake having zinc as the target metal of the study. Additionally, we present the results of experiments where biochar is used to adsorb zinc to determine its efficiency to be used in the remedial efforts applied in this watershed. The CLU-IN webinar, where this study will be presented, has a wide spectrum of professionals among its audience: government technical staff from several agencies, state technical and managerial staff, leaders from different communities involved, consulting firms, and academic scientist. This is a great opportunity for the ORD research to be exposed to this wide audience.
Description:
The need of reducing the contamination generated by the runoff from mine tailings and transported onto surface water that is used by the population as drinking water sources and for recreational activities is a common issue that EPA helps the regions to address. There are important decisions to be made as the removal of the contamination sources and remediation options for each affected creek will have a long-term impact in the surrounding communities. This presentation will present the case of the Spring River watershed, which is part of the Tri-State mining district, which was a lead and zinc mining area from the 1850s to the 1970s. In this watershed, we monitored the distribution and estimated the transport of dissolved and particulate zinc in the creeks and rivers tributaries and effluent to Empire Lake to determine the saturation state of the lake and to provide elements for the selection of BMPs for each tributary. We considered the chemistry of the water to select the location and type of BMPs to be applied. Additionally, we explored the use of several adsorbent materials (e.g. biochar, modified silicates, cationic exchange resin, etc.) that might be able to remove dissolved and particulate metals in in-stream applications for the reduction of metal contamination in surface waters.