Environmental impact of mining
[3] To accommodate mines and associated infrastructure, land is cleared extensively, consuming significant energy and water resources, emitting air pollutants, and producing hazardous waste.
[10] If proper precautions are not taken, unnaturally high concentrations of chemicals, such as arsenic, cyanide, sulphuric acid, and mercury can spread over a significant area of surface or subsurface water.
The minimization of environmental degradation is enforced in American mining practices by federal and state law, by restricting operators to meet standards for the protection of surface and groundwater from contamination.
At the ecosystem level, air pollution can shift the competitive balance among the species present and may lead to changes in the composition of the plant community.
The same type of chemical reactions and processes may occur through the disturbance of acid sulfate soils formed under coastal or estuarine conditions after the last major sea level rise, and constitutes a similar environmental hazard.
Tar Creek, an abandoned mining area in Picher, Oklahoma that is now an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site, also suffers from heavy metal contamination.
[32] Long-term storage of tailings and dust can lead to additional problems, as they can be easily blown off site by wind, as occurred at Skouriotissa, an abandoned copper mine in Cyprus.
On a broader scale, mining activities contribute to significant environmental problems such as pollution and climate change, which have regional and global repercussions.
[35] The implantation of a mine is a major habitat modification, and smaller perturbations occur on a larger scale than exploitation site, mine-waste residuals contamination of the environment for example.
[39] Biomagnification plays an important role in polluted habitats: mining impacts on biodiversity, assuming that concentration levels are not high enough to directly kill exposed organisms, should be greater to the species on top of the food chain because of this phenomenon.
[44] Contaminants can also affect aquatic organisms through physical effects:[44] streams with high concentrations of suspended sediment limit light, thus diminishing algae biomass.
Moreover, contamination persists over time: ninety years after a pyrite mine closure, water pH was still very low and microorganisms populations consisted mainly of acidophil bacteria.
[49] Algae communities are less diverse in acidic water containing high zinc concentration,[44] and mine drainage stress decrease their primary production.
Diatoms' community is greatly modified by any chemical change,[50] pH phytoplankton assemblage,[51] and high metal concentration diminishes the abundance of planktonic species.
[53] Primary zones of deep-sea mining include operational hydrothermal vents along spreading centers (e.g., mid-ocean ridges, volcanic arcs) on the ocean floor where sulfide minerals were deposited.
[54] These potential outcomes can alter the chemical balance of these environments, leading to a cascade of declines in benthic and pelagic species that rely on hydrothermal vents as sources of nutrient availability.
[68] This indicates a significant risk for animal biodiversity, considering mining is believed to have some of the most profound negative impacts on local fauna, such as reducing the availability of food and shelter, which in turn limits the number of individuals a region can sustain.
[70] Landscape alterations, in particular, pose a significant threat to medium and large-sized forest-dependent mammals that require large areas to meet their needs.
[70] Medium-large mammals vary in their tolerance to anthropogenically driven changes to their ecosystems; this impacts their ability to find food, move, and avoid hunting pressures.
[70] This relationship has been highlighted in iron-rich areas of India where mining's anthropogenic impacts have been reduced by regulations on waste production, mitigating the adverse effects of mineral extraction on local fauna such as elephants.
[69] Over the past several decades mining activities have rapidly expanded across Africa; this has driven large-scale deforestation and increased human settlement in the mineral-rich eastern and western regions of Brong-Ahafo (forest land in Ghana).
[69] Increased settlement has facilitated migration of loggers, miners, other workers creating further stress on forested areas, with many migrants utilizing hunting for wild animals to collect bushmeat.
[69] This scenario, exemplifies the profound ecological repercussions of mining on fauna biodiversity and highlights the urgent need for implementation of conservation strategies to mitigate the impacts of mineral extraction on local wildlife populations.
[38] If fewer ants are found, chances are higher that other organisms living in the surrounding landscape are strongly affected by the high copper levels as well.
However, some fungi possess contaminant accumulation capacity and soil cleaning ability by changing the biodisponibility of pollutants,[58] this can protect plants from potential damages that could be caused by chemicals.
On the contrary, some microbes can deteriorate the environment: which can lead to elevated SO4 in the water and can also increase microbial production of hydrogen sulfide, a toxin for many aquatic plants and organisms.
[83] It resulted that this mine till this day still has negative impacts on human health through crops and it is evident that there needs to be more cleaning up measures around surrounding areas.
Furthermore, air pollution seems to have various malign health effects in early human life, such as respiratory, cardiovascular, mental, and perinatal disorders, leading to infant mortality or chronic disease in adult age.
[citation needed] The lifecycle of mining coal is one of the filthiest cycles that causes deforestation due to the amount of toxins, and heavy metals that are released soil and water environment.
The future of air pollution remains unclear as the Environmental Protection Agency have tried to prevent some emissions but don't have control measures in place for all plants producing mining of coal.
