Water Cover Over Mine Tailings and Sludge: Field Studies of Water Quality and Resuspension

Abstract

Flooding is considered one of the best available technologies for long term storage of acid generating mine waste when suitable site-specific conditions exist. There is, however, a concern that oxidation may still occur. In cases where lime neutralization sludge and reactive sulfide tailings are co-disposed in the tailings pond, wind-induced waves could resuspend the waste and negatively impact the quality of the water cover. Studies were undertaken at the Noranda Inc. Heath Steele Lower Cell tailings impoundment, located in northeastern New Brunswick, Canada, 50 km northwest of city of Miramichi. The stored material in the cell consisted of unoxidized tailings with small amounts of sludge. The 90 ha impoundment acted as a polishing pond, prior to the discharge of final effluent. The pond was keptalkaline (pH of 8.5-10.5) in order to meet regulated discharge limits. On some windy days when the Lower Cell experienced turbulent water conditions, the final effluent exceeded the suspended solids water quality standard of 25 mg/L. The dry mass of suspended sediment measured in 1999 ranged from 1.5 to 434 mg with relatively more material (> 100 mg) being suspended under shallow water cover (= 1 m). Both x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analyses indicated that the suspended material was mostly lime neutralization sludge and other material composed primarily of calcite and brucite and coatings of aluminum, iron, zinc and manganese hydroxides. Solubility considerations of the carbonate system confirmed that the water cover was supersaturated with respect to calcite. The results suggest that sludge and tailings re-suspension and precipitation of solid phases in the water cover likely combined to produce the observed, occasionally high total suspended solids concentration.