Mount Polley Mine, BC Canada

    Mount Polley Mine: Mine in Destruction

 

 

 

     Our project was about the Mount Polley Mine in British Colombia, Canada. Mount Polley mine is a open pit mine that mines gold and copper. Both of these ores would be a high-grade ore. Gold is one of the biggest minerals in our society today. We use gold with jewelry, money, electronics, and dentistry. We use copper with money, electronics, and electricity. Everything that we use in our society most likely has copper in it.
     The Mount Polley Mine in British Colombia, Canada uses different extraction and processing techniques that can cause environmental problems in the future.

     This mine uses many mining techniques to get the minerals it needs. First, they have several methods and steps of grinding the materials. They use two parallel rod mill/ ball mill circuits and a pebble mill circuit. Water is then added to form slurries. These slurries are pumped to cyclones that classy and organize the ore particles by size. The larger particles separate into the ball mills, where this second stage of operation pumps the particles into slurry again.
     The next circuit also separates the valuable minerals to the waste minerals. The valuable minerals are separated from the waste minerals by floating, collected, upgraded, or cleaned to make a concentrate. Later on, waste minerals will never be used again and are simply thrown away.
    These valuable minerals however, keep moving through the cycle. The machines' get rid of the remaining water and controls the particles. After this final process, the concentrate is stored and loaded onto trucks for shipping.
    Although this brings great economic wealth to the mining industry, there are also environmental impacts that affect our earth. With all of these steps to process the minerals, this could bring pollution to our earth because of the big machines that do most of the work.
    However, there is environmental restoration that is being made to this mine. More workers are documenting the impact so many environmentalists take immediate action. They issued a control plan for the continuous erosion. Some parts of the plan are to add more water to Quesnel Lake and reduce exposed sediments.
    In Canada, there are laws to prevent mine destruction from becoming a major issue. First, there is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. It states that there must be a cleanup process if there are hazardous chemicals. Second, the Clean Water Act affects work in wetlands or waterways. They may require a permit for a cleanup to happen. Third, the Safe Drinking Water Act sets the maximum levels for the contaminants in drinking water. There could be drinking water regulations. One more law is the DEC solid waste regulations. It governs the storage and disposal of solid wastes. These regulations have permits for landfills for the waste.
   Concerning the environmental factors, there will be social, political, and economic issues. The major issue would be most of the population eats the salmon in the nearby river. When the fish get contaminated, the natives will lose their main food source.
    In conclusion, The Mount Polley Mine has had major environmental problems that not only has affected the company, but it has affected millions of people.

Works Cited:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/eemp/incidents/2014/mount-polley/

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/13/mount-polley-mine-spill-british-columbia-Canada

 

http://www.imperialmetals.com/s/Mt_Polley_Update.asp?ReportID=671041

https://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp/guidance/envlaws.pdf

http://canadians.org/blog/update-mount-polley-mine-disaster-imperial-metals-and-government-focus-covering-instead

http://www.imperialmetalst.com/s/MountPolleyMine.asp

 

 

 
  

Biodiversity Hotspots: New Zealand

New Zealand

            Here is a map of New Zealand

             Biodiversity is the short way of saying biological diversity. It describes all of the plant and animal species. Most of the time, biodiversity looks at the species'  genes and their ecosystems. New Zealand is the perfect spot of biodiversity because of its location and more than half of the species are found no where else in the world. It has over 200 bird species, 35 species of reptiles, and 64% of fish species are found in New Zealand. This country is located southeast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean.

             New Zealand has one major biome, the temperate rain forest biome. It's a mixture between the rainforest biome and the deciduous forest biome. Typically a rain forest will get about 8,800 KCal energy units per year. While the deciduous temperate forest gets about 5,600 KCal energy units per year. Both of these biomes together get about 14,440 KCal energy units per year. A tropical rainforest has warm temperatures, high humidity, and daily rainfall. Most of the time a temperate deciduous forest usually has average temperatures with long, warm, summers and cool, short, winters. Pictured below is my food web of the combined New Zealand biomes.

          There are many types or forms of biodiversity hotspots. Functional, ecological, genetic, and species biodiversity. Functional biodiversity is a biological or chemical process where energy flow and matter cycling are needed to have organisms to survive. Another type of diversity would be ecological diversity which is all of the forests, deserts, oceans, streams, and other biological communities that interact with each other. Every animal has a genetic makeup but every species has a different genetics. That is genetic diversity. Finally, species diversity is the number of different species that are combined with the abundance of individuals in the same area. New Zealand is very diverse country. It has different species, genetic, and ecological diversity. With many of its species that are endemic and with its different ecosystems, New Zealand is a very diverse spot.

          Everywhere, there will be species that are endangered. For instance, New Zealand has many species that are endangered and threatened. The top five mammals that are endangered are the Greater Short-Tailed Bat, Maui's dolphin Bryde's whale, Southern Elephant Seal, and the New Zealand Sea Lion. There are threatened species as well, such as bats, frogs, marine animals, fish, mosses, and birds. The main reason that there are endangered and threatened species is because of all of the endemic species. Endemic species are species that can't be found anywhere else in the world. When these species are extinct, they are gone forever.

This is a picture of an Endangered species called the Kiwi Bird.

 

          When there is a diverse area in the world, there will be environmental degradation. Environmental degradation is the destruction of a potentially renewable resource such as soil, grasslands, and other natural elements. New Zealand has two major environmental degradation problems, deforestation and invasive species. Forests cover New Zealand and because of urbanization, agriculture, and ranching, many of the forests are being cut down. That is a threat for extinction. Invasive species have taken over as well. Invasive species eat the native species. Native species have special environmental niches. If invasive species eat the native species, then those niches will be destroyed and the community will be in danger.

          

The effect of deforestation in New Zealand.

           In New Zealand, there are economic implications on degradation. For an example, New Zealand trades agriculture throughout the world. Agriculture needs land so deforestation is the only method to have the fast production of crops.

         There are ways to stop the deforestation and invasive species destruction. Many scientists in New Zealand are educating people about how much deforestation can harm an ecosystem. Also there are models to help scientists locate where the endangered species are. Many volunteers and scientists remove the invasive species to their natural habitat to keep the native species safe. Finally, the government is helping to keep species alive and well by placing laws to protect them. New Zealand is slowly helping it's degraded ecosystems one step at a time.

            In conclusion, New Zealand has many diverse areas in the country. But, human activities can harm the diverse country. The country and its people has done many things to keep the biodiversity alive and well. Hopefully, people will continue do to that and New Zealand won't have many problems in the future.

          

Work Cited

"Biodiversity of New Zealand." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity_of_New_Zealand.

"Biodiversity." Ministry for the Environment. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://mfe.govt.nz/issues/biodiversity/.

"Biodiversity in New Zealand - Biodiversity." Biodiversity in New Zealand - Biodiversity. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.biodiversity.govt.nz/picture/biodiversity/index.html.

"Biological Diversity in New Zealand." Biological Diversity in New Zealand. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150627/.

"Restoring a City's Natural Ecosystems." Restoring a City's Natural Ecosystems: University of Waikato. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.waikato.ac.nz/research/outputs/city.shtml.

"Biodiversity Hotspots." Open Knowledge. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://knowledge.allianz.com/environment/food_water/?2017/Biodiversity-hotspots.

Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.world-builders.org/lessons/less/biomes/rainforest/temp_rain/tempgifs/tempweb.gif.

"Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand." Threatened Species –. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/threatened-species.

"NZ Herald: New Zealand's Latest News, Business, Sport, Weather, Travel, Technology, Entertainment, Politics, Finance, Health, Environment and Science." The New Zealand Herald. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10797165.

 

 

 

 

  

    

 



9/29/14 Learning About Food Webs and Energy Pyramids Summary

1.          In AP Environmental Science class, we have been learning about food webs and energy pyramids. First of all, a food chain is where there is food/energy that is being moved from one level to the next. An example would be a woodland food web. The leaves are the producers that get their food from the sun, the earwig eats the leaves and gets energy there. The earwig would be a primary consumer who eats only plants. Just like a herbivore would. The third energy level would be the secondary consumer who eats the primary consumer. A secondary consumer eats only meat. In this food web, the earwig would get eaten by the ground beetle. To conclude this food chain, the wolf spider, which is a tertiary consumer, would eat the ground beetle and get energy through there. A tertiary consumer is a consumer that eats meat and plants. (***********) pyramids tie in with food chains.
            Each producer and consumer have a section of how much energy they consume. The energy is always measured by tens. Each energy level divide by ten as they go up. Like producers have 10,00, primary consumers have 1,000, secondary consumers have 100, and tertiary consumers have 10. All of the energy is released at heat at the end. In conclusion, food webs are energy that gets transferred to each producer and consumer.

2.        In my group's food web, we played a game where we had to get a food chain of animals that eat what and who. We had three people in my group including me. Once we had our food chains, we combined ours together to make one big food web.
           Our food web biome's would be a desert biome. We had the cactus plant, the rattlesnake, a hawk, and a coyote. All of these animals could thrive in a desert biome. These animals have their habitats located here and can survive in the harsh conditions.

 

Works Cited

"Woodland Food Web" http://www.field-studies-council.org/breathingplaces/images/minibeasts/FOODWEB.gif

 

Annie McAninch
Mr. Butera
AP Enivornmental

Ecological Footprint Summary

          An Ecological Footprint is a concept when humans use the earth's resources. An example would be using the Amazon rainforest's trees for paper.  I found out that humans don't really care about the environment because we use too much resources. I also found out that every environment is different in different countries. For example, Bolivia has a high rate of biocapacity which means they have a lot of plantations so they use a lot of pesticides. While in Japan, there's more cities and people, so more resources are going to get used up. The biocapacity in Japan is extremely low because there's not a lot of fields in Japan. Everything has a tipping point. A tipping point is when we use too much of our resources and then we can never get those resources back. I have learned that the environment is important and that we should all keep it clean.