What is the purpose of a tailings pond in mining?
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What is the purpose of a tailings pond in mining?
Tailings ponds are used to store the waste made from separating minerals from rocks, or the slurry produced from tar sands mining. Tailings are sometimes mixed with other materials such as bentonite to form a thicker slurry that slows the release of impacted water to the environment.
What are mining tailing ponds?
Tailings ponds are engineered dam and dyke facilities used for storage of tailings materials. Tailing ponds are also used to enable water to separate from the tailings. Water from the tailings ponds is recycled back into the extraction process, reducing the use of fresh water from the Athabasca River and other sources.
What are some of the consequences associated with tailings?
Mine tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the desired product from an ore. They often consist of fine particles suspended in water, which have the potential to damage the environment by releasing toxic metals, causing erosion and sinkholes, and contaminating soil and water supplies.
What is a tailing in mining?
Tailings are a by-product of mining. After ore containing an economically-recoverable commodity is mined from the earth, that commodity is extracted in a processing plant or mill. After the commodity of value is extracted from the ore material, the resultant waste stream is termed “tailings”.
What can be found in tailings?
Tailings from oilsands can contain napthenic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenolic compounds, ammonia, lead, mercury, and other metals.
What are 3 more environmental impacts of mining?
Mining can pollute air and drinking water, harm wildlife and habitat, and permanently scar natural landscapes. Modern mines as well as abandoned mines are responsible for significant environmental damage throughout the West.
What usually happens with mine tailings?
Most modern hardrock metal mines dispose of tailings as a wet mud, held in pits lined with clay or a synthetic liner. Many mines put the tailings back into the original mining pit. Some large mines use entire existing valleys sealed off with earthen dams, and others store tailings in natural lakes.
How does a tailing pond work?
When you take the rock out of the ground, you grind it up to particles about the size of sand and silt, then you run it through what they call a concentration plant and it separates the minerals of interest from the waste. The waste becomes tailings, and it gets mixed up with water, and it’s pumped out into this pond.
How are tailings hazardous?
Tailings can contaminate aquatic life with toxic heavy metals and milling chemicals. Some metals, particularly mercury, may bioaccumulate up the food chain, ultimately harming humans. It causes turbidity (murkiness from suspended particles) and reduces oxygen levels which directly impacts aquatic life.
How can we reduce environmental impact of tailings?
5 Ways to Make Mining More Sustainable
- Lower-Impact Mining Techniques.
- Reusing Mining Waste.
- Eco-Friendly Equipment.
- Rehabilitating Mining Sites.
- Shutting Down Illegal Mining.
How are tailing ponds made?
Tailings ponds are lined with compacted sand and a layer of fine clay. The clay has a low permeability rate which helps prevent tailings water from seeping into the groundwater. Vertical pumping wells are installed around the perimeter of the tailings dyke (or dam).
What chemicals are in tailings?
Tailing ponds are filled with toxic elements such as arsenic, cyanide, mercury waste, and other heavy metals with effects on the environment and human health.
