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