Open Cut » Environment
The release of salts from spoil piles can potentially affect surface and groundwater quality and the quality of water in final voids. Current hydrogeochemical salt balance models often assume that the total amount of inherent salts in spoils will be released over time or predict that water salinity will increase into the future based on site monitoring data from electrical conductivity measurements. The closure and rehabilitation of spoil piles and final voids based on such model outputs is uncertain and may be overly conservative, expensive and uncertain.
The overall aim of this project was to develop a process for estimating long term salinity generation rates from different classes of mine spoil. These estimates can then be used in conjunction with water balance models to predict long term final void salinity levels or the residual risk to receiving surface water or groundwater environments.