The effects of mining in Northern Romania on the heavy metal distribution in sediments of the rivers Szamos and Tisza (Hungary)

Abstract

The breach in the dam of a tailing pond in the processing plant of a gold mine in Baia Mare (NW Romania) in January 2000 lead to an ecological disaster in the rivers Szamos and Tisza. It was mainly caused by the released slurries containing cyanides and heavy metals. The investigation of surface sediment samples and depth profiles of the years 2000 and 2001 documented the pollution of the rivers Szamos and Tisza on Hungarian territory. In the Szamos and large areas of the Tisza floodplains a significant enrichment with the heavy metals Pb, Cd, Cu, and Zn is existent. The identification of the binding forms with sequential extraction showed that Cd and Zn exist in an easily available form. Therefore the remobilization is possible and an environmental hazard in the downstream areas must be considered. The anthropogenically caused portions of heavy metal concentrations decrease considerably with increasing distance to the mining region. The comparison of the concentrations of heavy metals in both years shows that the pollution is not only caused by the accident in January 2000. The increase of concentrations is based on the permanent input of pollutants into the rivers. The pollution is mainly caused by the erosion of exposed tailing dumps and the poor maintenance of the treatment plants.

The Study Of Physico- Chemical And Bacteriological Parameters Of River Salandi And Assessment Of Water Quality Index From Hadagada Dam To Akhandalmani, Bhadrak, Odisha, India

“…But earlier report of pollution control Board reveals that they have discharge the effluents of high concentration of Chromium to the river Salandi [18]. Although, at present, some chromite mines are not running, but the mining effluents left by them earlier without proper treatment has resulted open exposure of chromite mixed soil to the atmosphere and pollute the river Salandi with chromium through atmospheric rain precipitations as river Salandi is the only natural drainage system in the study area [5,9,30,47,54,68,69]. Hence more concentration of Cr 6+ is found from Bidyadharpur to Baudpur in the month of August and October is due to entry of mining discharges, industrial discharges [17], agricultural effluents, atmospheric rain precipitation and geology of river bed and catchment area [29,67].…”

“…Besides, open defecation in the river bed [15,27,35], burning and throwing of dead bodies and holding of socio-cultural function in the river bed [44,55] contribute significantly to the problem along with low flow of water and precipitation of contaminated dust through the rain water [9,30,54,68,69].…”

Research on the surface water quality in mining influenced area in north-western part of Romania

“…Major attention was given to the mining impact on the quality of water, and the content in heavy metals (cadmium, lead, copper, manganese, zinc, iron, arsenic etc) using various investigation techniques (Bird, et al, 2003;Macklin, et al, 2006;Kraft, et al, 2006;Roman, et al, 2008).…”

Preliminary assessment of heavy metals in water, sediment and macrophyte (Lemna minor) collected from Anchar Lake, Kashmir, India

“…In freshwater bodies, there is always presence of some amount of heavy metals derived mostly from the mineralogy and weathering (Samarghandi et al 2007;Karbassi et al 2008). However, anthropogenic activities such as mining, long-term disposal of untreated and partially treated effluents containing metals as well as metal chelates, indiscriminate use of heavy metal-containing fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture fields, wet and dry fallout of atmospheric particulate matter, urban run-off and direct solid waste dumping (Kraft et al 2006 ;Krywult et al 2008) can accelerate the rate at which these heavy metals are added to the water bodies. Being non-biodegradable these metals under some environmental conditions could accumulate and biomagnify through the food chain to toxic levels and eventually result in ecological damage (Walker et al 2006).…”