Current state of registered hazardous abandoned mine waste facilities in the Czech Republic

 

Vít Štrupl, Miroslav Raus, Vladimír Zýval, Stanislav Fojtík

Geoscience Research Reports 50, 2017, pages 95–97

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Published online: 29 June 2017

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Abstract

A new Act No. 157/2009 Coll. on mine waste management was adopted in the Czech Republic in 2009. It introduced an appropriate terminology regarding mine wastes and their handling, and also specified new duties for state and private organizations (Kaňka 2008) dealing with mine wastes. In connection with provisions of this Act, the Ministry of the Environment authorized the Czech Geological Survey (CGS) to identify closed and abandoned mine waste sites posing serious environmental and human health hazards and to administer an Inventory of Hazardous Mine Waste Facilities (Sites). In order to fulfil these tasks, the CGS prepared a project entitled “Investigation of closed and abandoned mine waste facilities (sites) posing a serious risk to the environment or human health“, as a part of the Operational Programme Environment. The project was carried out in 2010-2012, and the aim was to establish an inventory of hazardous mine waste sites and to develop an appropriate methodology for their assessment (Štrupl 2013). Methodology was described in Fundamental Principles for Investigating and Assessing Risks of Abandoned Waste Facilities (Čížek et al. 2012) and were drown up in 2011. They are derived from recommendations given in a document from 2011 entitled “Guidance document for a risk-based pre-selection protocol for the inventory of closed waste facilities as required by article 20 of directive 2006/21/EC“, intended for preliminary screening of waste sites in EU countries. Risks involved at the surveyed sites were assessed and verified at 5 localities (Raus et al. 2012) using the approved methodology comprising five categories: geological, hydrogeological, geochemical, hydrochemical and engineering geological conditions. Risk level classification is given in Table 1. Details regarding the applied methodology are available at CGS websites in Czech and English versions. Altogether 300 potentially hazardous mine waste sites were identified, and which were selected according to the following criteria:
  • type of raw materials mined (e.g. sulfidic ores containing minerals of Ag, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, Sn, Te, Tl, V, Zn);
  • occurrence of harmful substances in the mine waste (ore or gangue minerals and rocks);
  • area of heap exceeding 1 ha;
  • depth of tailings ponds is over 4 m;
  • height of heap exceeding 10 m.
Until the end of 2012, the study of 25 selected hazardous localities was completed, and 9 sites were included in the Inventory of Hazardous Mine Waste Facilities/Sites (Štrupl 2012). The investigation of other 18 localities showing high level of contamination then continued in the years 2014-2016, and the obtained results were evaluated at the beginning of 2017. Finally, some 19 sites were registered in the Inventory of Hazardous Mine Waste Facilities (Sites).
 

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