Recreational Use of Acidic Pit Lakes—Human Health Considerations for Post Closure Planning

Abstract

Pit lakes may form in mining voids that extend below groundwater level after mining ceases and many have been found to have elevated metals concentrations and low pH through acidic and metalliferous drainage (AMD). Pit lakes are often used for recreational activities including swimming, fishing and boating and poor water quality may present health risks to recreational users. Pit lakes also provide the opportunity for additional water resource uses. The Collie Coal Basin in south-western Australia currently has a number of pit lakes with moderate AMD effects which are also used for recreational pursuits. Twelve hundred questionnaires were mailed to selected addresses in the Collie shire with an additional 170 questionnaires to specific interest groups. Participants were asked about the type of activity, frequency and duration and any health symptoms experienced after use of the lakes. Two hundred and fifty questionnaires were returned, which comprised 176 returns from the random sample and 74 from the targeted sample. Three pit lakes with elevated metals concentrations and low pH were used for recreational purposes by 62% of respondents. This was mostly in summer with swimming the most common activity. Of all respondents 52% were concerned about lake water quality and 38% using the lakes reported a variety of symptoms. Recreational use of Collie pit lakes did not represent a health risk for most of the surveyed population due to the low frequency and duration of use, however health risks may be elevated in sensitive users such as children and those consuming seafood from the lakes. Comprehensive water quality monitoring for chemicals and further characterisation of recreational use of pit lakes is warranted to more comprehensively assess the potential health risks to recreational users. Post closure mine plans need to consider potential future community uses combined with assessments of water quality and physical characteristics to reduce the potential for adverse health and safety impacts.

The Evaluation of the Possibility to Use the Water from Quarry Lakes for Irrigation

“…al., 2003;Kumar et al, 2009). The iron load noted in the analysed quarry lakes was lower (14.2-206.0 mg Fe ×dm -3 , to 690.0-2463 248 mg Fe×dm -3 ) than the results obtained for coal and lignite quarry lakes (Kleeberg, Grüneberg, 2005;McCullough, 2008;Kumar et al, 2009) although in certain lakes, these values were comparable (0.003-1.1 mg Fe×dm -3 ) to those noted in the Strzelin quarry lakes (Kleeberg and Grüneberg, 2005; Kumar et al, 2009;Schultze et al, 2010;Hinwood et al, 2012;Kumar et al, 2016). The iron content in the analysed water was below 10.0 mg Fe×dm -3 (5.0 mg Fe×dm -3 by FAO), so it did not lead to any restrictions concerning the use of water from the analysed quarry lakes for irrigation, and the load below 0.1 mg Fe×dm -3 leads to the restrictions in sprinkler irrigation due to the risk of sprinkler clogging (Ayers and Westcott, 1985; PN-84/C-04635, Kaniszewski and Treder, 2018).…”

“…al., 2003;Kumar et al, 2009). On the other hand, in the pit (mine) lakes that emerged in coal and lignite mines the manganese load falls into the range of 0.0002-1.8 mg Mn×dm -3 , reaching 11.8-13.0 mg Mn×dm -3 , and even up to 150.0 mg Mn×dm -3 (Stottmeister et al, 1999;Kumar et al, 2009;Schultze et al, 2010;Hinwood et al, 2012), and the values over 0.5 mg Mn×dm -3 significantly exceed those noted in the analysed Strzelin quarry lakes. In the silica sand quarry lake, the manganese content was <0.01 mg Mn ×dm -3 (Kumar et al, 2009), which was similar to the values from the analysed quarry lakes.…”

The Use of Digital Terrain Models to Estimate the Pace of Filling the Pit of a Central European Granite Quarry with Water

“…After discontinuation of dewatering, the pits fill with groundwater, rainfall, and surface runoff to form emerging pit lakes or quarry lakes [3,23,24,27,31,32,37,41,42,62,63], which may have different depths [3,23,24,30,31,36,50,57,58,61,[64][65][66][67], surface area [3,23,24,32,36,37,50,57,58,66,67] and cubic capacities [23,36,50,67,68], depending on the type of the excavated material and mining technology used [23,30,36,37,56,61,65]. Depending on the geomorphological parameters of an open-excavation pit, hydrogeological conditions, the geological structure of the mine and its surroundi...…”

Consequences and opportunities from river breach and decant of an acidic mine pit lake

“…River flow-through remediated lake water pH above recreational guideline pH values in the upper 10 m waters in which people would swim. Lake water quality studies for elevated metal and metalloid concentrations against swimming guidelines for chronic health outcomes are also still required (Hinwood et al, 2012).…”