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Most abandoned and inactive mines in the Philippines pose high risks to human health and the environment due to the disturbed and exposed heavy metal-laden soils and sediments and water-filled open pit mines. Establishing these mines’ environmental conditions remains a challenge as it requires time, effort, resources, and faces a lack of funding as the economic phase of the mine has already ceased. In order to contribute to the solution on the assessment of abandoned and inactive mines, integrated methods with combined essential testing, sampling, and analyses of different environmental media present in the mine site are suggested in this paper. On-site and laboratory methods include analyses for water (surface water and groundwater characterization, quality assessment, and environmental isotope tracers), soils and sediments (heavy and trace metals, anomalous elements, erosion, and nutrient availability), air quality, and radiometric survey. These methods can be classified as rapid with complete data, and information can be gathered to support a health risk assessment in the area, as well as used as a guide for rehabilitation prioritization of the abandoned mines.

A rapid environmental assessment of the abandoned Palawan Quicksilver Mines, Inc. (PQMI) mined-out area and vicinities in Puerto Princesa City, Philippines was conducted from October 2018 to December 2019 to trace the pathways of mercury (Hg) concentration in different media, including groundwater. In this study, existing wells, drilled boreholes, and hand water pumps near the PQMI pit lake were used as sampling wells. Hg and other heavy metals – arsenic (As), barium (Ba), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), and nickel (Ni) – were analyzed to determine the concentrations and compared to the international and Philippine standard for drinking water. Results showed that As, Ba, and Hg concentrations in the entire groundwater samples collected from sampling wells have concentrations that are within the international and Philippines standards for drinking water. Groundwater samples from drilled boreholes have the measured Cr, Mn, and Ni concentrations exceed the standards for drinking water. The results further suggest that there is no mixing of groundwater and surface waters within the aquifer.

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