Environmental Issue Raised By The Mining Industry

The Mining Act does a very good job at protecting certain aspects of the environment such as ensuring that over exploitation of minerals does not occur, or making it mandatory to have a plan in place for closing the mine as well as assuring that there is money to do so. Although there are many things that this Act does right, there are also areas in which there are issues and should be improved. One of the first issues pertaining to this Act is the impact that it fails to mitigate regarding water quality. In areas where mining development occurs, the water quality is drastically affected and a study found that “water from waste rock piles has an ionic profile distinct from unimpacted catchments” (Carey, Wellen, & Shatilla, 2015), meaning that in order to mitigate the impact of the runoff measures must be put in place to limit it. Secondly, the Act does not involve

Things like mining too far into a wall that connects to an older mine, thus increasing the danger of a collapse, is common. Other practices include shoddy dams that contain the slurry, a mixture of water and fine particles of coal, which do not always meet structural regulations that can and have broken and flood nearby communities (Light and Light, 2006). There are other environmental issues that are associated with coal mining. Acid mine drainage is the result of sulfide minerals being exposed to oxygen. This produces sulfuric acid and can dissolve heavy metals from the waste rock, making it bioavailable. Without proper treatment, this will poison the water systems near that mine and will seep into the streams, creeks, and even ground and well water. The water turns orange and is impossible for anything to live off of the water or in it (Kirsch, 2014). Another issue of coal mining is airborne coal dust, which can result in Black Lung disease. This is caused by inhaling too much coal dust and is common in miners, but with surface mining becoming more prevalent, more coal dust is being released into the air and drifting down to the communities. More children and elderly people are having respiratory problems that many believe are because of

Midwest Copper Mining’s (MCM) biggest problem they are facing is that of sustaining supportable profit growth, as the undercurrents of the copper mining industry are changing. In particular, they need to figure out how they are going to increase their capacity to meet demands globally. They also need to figure out how to do this without disrupting the current culture of the business. They have been very successful and have created process and procedures that have kept them sustainable over the years. With the changing of the copper industry, MCM needs to re-evaluate their business strategy, make changes as necessary, in order to continue to be a successful company that is both a cost-leader and a differentiator.

Canada is home to some of the largest mining corporations in the world. In fact, seventy-five percent of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada (Dean, 2013). These companies are involved in the extraction of numerous resources, including silver, petroleum, bitumen and coal. Canadian mining operations also have a particular focus in gold, as twenty-one of the country’s top forty mining companies are involved in gold extraction. With billion dollar annual revenues and interests in almost every continent, these multinational companies are making a large impact around the globe (Canadian Mining Journal, 2014). However, these impacts are not necessarily positive. Canadian mining corporations have failed to implement CSR policies and

Strip mining is terrible for the earth.” In the US, from 1930 to 2000, coal mining altered about 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of natural landscape, most originally forest.”

Mining hazards are caused by mining activities that impact the nearby environment. Irreversible damages were caused around the globe since the beginning of mining.

Minerals can affect society in many ways for example; Surface mining destroys vegetation across large areas, increasing erosion. Open-pit mining uses huge quantities of water. Acid mine drainage is pollution caused when dissolved toxic materials wash from mines into nearby lakes and streams. Minerals is approximately 80 percent of mined ore consists of impurities that become wastes after processing. These wastes, called tailings, are usually left in giant piles on the ground or in ponds near the processing plants (Figure 12.9). The tailings contain toxic materials such as cyanide, mercury, and sulfuric acid. Left

The environmental effects of gold mining are that cyanide is extremely toxic to birds and mammals drawn to these ponds in search of water. The ponds can also leak or overflow, posing threats to underground drinking water supplies and fish and other forms of life nearby lakes and streams. Snow and heavy rains washed out an earthen dam on one end of a cyanide leach pond at a gold mine in Romania. Several hundred thousand people living along these rivers were told not to fish or to drink or withdraw water from affected rivers or from wells along the

To recover diamonds, the industry is using modern mining methods and a more clinical approach to sustainability of mining and therefore the impact on the environment is being minimized while the benefits to the communities and countries where they are found are being maximized. These benefits are

In our days, mining for resources is inevitable. The resources we need are valuable in everyday life. Such resources mined up are coal, copper, gold, silver, and sand. However, mining poses environmental risks that can degrade the quality of soil and water, which can end up effecting us humans if not taken care of and many of the damages are irreversible once they have occurred.

The most serious issue that leads to environmental destruction is weak policy on mining and water management policies. In the absence of proactive measurements from all stakeholders, fresh water resources, such as numerous lakes, rivers, and streams have dried up, resulting in severe water scarcity and quality crisis. Because Mongolian mining sector is considered to be the most harmful donor to environmental destruction unless it is correctly managed and controlled.

Mining is a relatively temporary activity due to the limited operating lives of the mining sites, which are determined by the size and quality of the ore deposit being mined.

Introduction: There is a lot of physical strengths involved in mining. However, before people mine any landscape, they need people like: geologists, mathematicians, biologists, engineers, economists, geographers, and other experts from narrower areas (mineralogists, geophysicists& petrologists) to plan & acknowledge all of the outcomes of their decisions (how mining is going to affect environment: flora & fauna, locals or people living around that area and the land itself).

The emergence of the term SLO can be traced back to the mining sector in the 1990’s and arose primarily as a result of the public concerns about the negative social and environmental impacts of mining projects (Boutilier, 2014). Boutilier (2014) attributed the coining of the term to James Cooney, Vice President of the now defunct Vancouver-based gold mining company Placer Dome Inc. (p. 263). According to Boutilier, Cooney is said to have used the term to refer to the risks associated with community resistance to mining projects (p. 263). Other contributing factors to the development of the SLO approach include: the emerging corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability paradigms (Hall & Jeanneret, 2015, p. 214); a shift in governance towards a civil society perspective; growing public desire to be more involved in the decision-making process and get their “fair share” of benefits and adequate assurance that operations will be managed safely and responsibly (Prno & Slocombe 2014 p. 672). According to the literature, these shifts are reframing the dynamics between corporations and its stakeholders at the local, national and global level, particularly in the extractive sectors.

Metals have been an important industry for mankind since the Bronze Age, gold and silver are other important metals that were used for currency and ornamental jewelry. The Industrial Revolution helped to usher in modern civilization by transforming iron into railway transportation and high rise buildings in all of the major cities around the world. Concerns for the environment did not exist as long as the metals could be extracted to fulfill the needs of the masses. Environmental concerns about mining didn’t even come about in the United States until the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976 (EPA 1976).