Assessment of Water Quality Around Mine Sites

Abstract

One of the major impacts of mining processes is the contamination of water bodies through mine water drainage, leakage of water exposed to minerals, water from soil heaps, acid mine drainage and mine water rebound. Water is the most important element of eco-system and it is thus imperative to determine and mitigate the effects of mining operation on the same. Also, contaminated water has adverse physiological effects on human being and other animals. For this, it is important to identify the critical parameters in the water sample which is the scope of the study.

Sampling, Water quality parameters and their tests:
Samples were collected from different mines including both coal and metal mines spread over northern and western Odisha such as samples from Ib Valley coal mines of MCL, discharge of iron mines from Chhattisgarh and Koira region and were analysed through a series of experiments following standard procedure. The concentration of various physical, chemical, metallic and organic parameters were found which included determination of turbidity, conductivity, solids, iron, chromium content, pH, hardness, ammonia, nitrate, sulphate, phenol, fluoride, phosphate and organic parameters of importance such as Dissolved oxygen, Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand.

Results and Discussions:
The results indicated that discharge of iron mine, Chhattisgarh, exceeds the contamination limits for physical and metal parameters but is within limits for others. Samples from the coal mining areas are having elevated concentrations of physical, chemical and organic parameters, such as solid content, turbidity and dissolved oxygen. Samples from metal mining region of Koira showed higher iron content and other nutrients. The results were quantified to determine the degree of contamination.
The values of degree of contamination (Cd) are given in the table-1. The Cd values indicate that the water samples from coal mines, iron mines of Chhattisgarh, Barsuan and Bandhal from Koira region are heavily polluted.

Sl no Sample Id Degree of Contamination
1 Coal mine main sump discharge, MCL, Ib Valley 39.76
2 Iron mines, Chhattisgarh 93.4
3 Coal mine, MCL, North Central Ib Valley 4.85
4 Nallah nearby Iron mines, Barsuan area 6.253
5 Nallah in between two iron mines -4.766
6 Origin of a nallah near iron mine -4.1726
7 Nallah Adjacent to Manganese and Iron Mines 38.84
8 Post mine stream (Mn and Fe mines) of nallah -1.784
9 Nallah, 100 mtrs from the Iron Mine -2.7
10 Nallah flowing downhill from a Fe Mine -2.39