Mining Safety and Sustainability I

Safety and sustainability are becoming ever bigger challenges for the mining industry with the increasing depth of mining. It is of great significance to reduce the disaster risk of mining accidents, enhance the safety of mining operations, and improve the efficiency and sustainability of development of mineral resource. This book provides a platform to present new research and recent advances in the safety and sustainability of mining. More specifically, Mining Safety and Sustainability presents recent theoretical and experimental studies with a focus on safety mining, green mining, intelligent mining and mines, sustainable development, risk management of mines, ecological restoration of mines, mining methods and technologies, and damage monitoring and prediction. It will be further helpful to provide theoretical support and technical support for guiding the normative, green, safe, and sustainable development of the mining industry

Integration of landscape reclamation, planning and design in a post-mining district: Cartagena-La Union, SE Spain

[SPA] Debido a los graves impactos ambientales que provoca la actividad minera en el paisaje, es fundamental encontrar soluciones sostenibles para la recuperación de aquellos espacios que han sufrido o están sufriendo dichos impactos, y cuyos efectos se pueden observar alrededor del mundo. De especial relevancia son las actividades mineras desarrolladas antiguamente, las cuales, debido a la falta de legislación al respecto, han dejado gran cantidad de zonas degradadas sin ningún valor socioeconómico ni cultural, afectando gravemente a los ecosistemas. No obstante, en las últimas décadas la sensibilidad por los problemas ambientales ha aumentado considerablemente, y se ha visto la necesidad de reducir las consecuencias negativas causadas por estas actividades y la importancia de devolver a aquellas zonas degradadas un uso útil y sostenible. El Distrito Minero de Cartagena-La Unión, debido a su larga historia minera y la gran cantidad de impactos presentes, se ha convertido en un gran desafío ambiental tanto para las comunidades locales como para la administración nacional. En base a esta problemática, y para contribuir a la recuperación del paisaje de las zonas mineras y con el fin de desarrollar nuevas funciones de uso, se procedió a desarrollar esta tesis doctoral. [ENG] It is crucial to find sustainable solutions for healing the landscape wounds of post-mining activities all over the world. Early mining operations left degraded lands not in accord with regional ecosystems and lacking socio-economic and cultural values. Increasing awareness of environmental sensitivity identified the minimization need of the environmental consequences of post-mining activities and the importance of returning the degraded land to a beneficial use. Cartagena-La Unión Mining District, depending upon its long time mining history, has become the subject of these challenges and pending questions for local communities and administrations in Spain. Based on this problematic, to contribute to the landscape reclamation of post-mining areas and to develop new land use functions in those.Universidad Politécnica de Cartagen

COMING TO THE SURFACE: THE ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, AND CULTURE IN BUTTE, MONTANA

Butte is a small town in southwest Montana that was profoundly shaped by over a century of mining and smelting activities. Today, Butte is a post-industrial city that is the focal point of America\u27s largest Superfund site as well as the nation\u27s largest National Historic District. There are two types of remediation occurring in Butte: environmental and cultural. Environmental remediation occurs throughout the city, most notably at the operable units of the Butte Superfund sites. This remediation does not restore the environment to its original state but instead reclaims it to a level of risk deemed acceptable by the EPA. Much like environmental remediation, community members practice acts of reclaiming history, landscape, and community. These are acts of cultural reclamation. To understand the current interrelationship between the environment, health, and culture in Butte, it is first necessary to understand the cultural foundations. Butte is a mining town that practices mining culture. A mining culture has several characteristics: physical and/or cultural isolation; pride in resilience, toughness, and craftsmanship; strong sense of community and kin networks; distrust of institutions, politics, and positions of power; historic pride and romanticizing the past; and gender division. These cultural values are at the core of Butte\u27s culture and heritage. These values are a basis for historic preservationists who oppose environmental remediation and promote the preservation of the historic mining landscape. This is in sharp contrast to the environmental groups that promote environmental remediation and cite elevated risk levels and potential health effects in their reasoning. Debate about risk levels and the consequences of living in a toxic landscape do not provide answers regarding health issues, however. The community does not track disease rates and has never performed a longitudinal epidemiology study. By remaining unaware of disease rates, the community and those in positions of power are left with only opinions. As a remedy, this study set out to investigate mortality rates in Butte and compare them to the state of Montana and the United States. This study showed that the majority of the mortality rates in Butte are greater than the state of Montana and United States rates for all disease groups, and that mortality rates fluctuate over time but are consistently elevated. It also showed that mortality rates correlate with the target systems of concern. It did not show a clear reduction in mortality rates after remediation. Several diseases, such as neurological disease, did decrease after remediation, and this potentially correlates to the extensive lead abatement program in the city

Proceedings of the XXVIIIth TELEMAC User Conference 18-19 October 2022

Hydrodynamic

Grinding and Concentration Technology of Critical Metals

The production and supply of raw materials is a basic ecosystem service, the origin of multiple production value chains. In 2011, the European Union elaborated a list of critical raw materials (CRMs), taking the economic and strategic importance for the European economy and the supply risk. Although focused mainly on the energy sector, the USA, Canada, and other countries took recently similar steps. Despite the great inertia characterising the mineral raw materials sector, some steps towards the Industry 4.0 paradigm can be envisaged. Significant challenges to the mining sector are the appropriate process design using the best available technologies; the increase in energy efficiency; the responsible use of water and handling of mining wastes; the social acceptance of the activity; and the digitalisation challenge. This book aims to propose strategies that can help face those challenges, especially in increasing energy efficiency in comminution operations

Mining and Communities in Northern Canada

For indigenous communities throughout the globe, mining has been a historical forerunner of colonialism, introducing new, and often disruptive, settlement patterns and economic arrangements. Although indigenous communities may benefit from and adapt to the wage labour and training opportunities provided by new mining operations, they are also often left to navigate the complicated process of remediating the long-term ecological changes associated with industrial mining. In this regard, the mining often inscribes colonialism as a broad set of physical and ecological changes to indigenous lands. Mining and Communities in Northern Canada examines historical and contemporary social, economic, and environmental impacts of mining on Aboriginal communities in northern Canada. Combining oral history research with intensive archival study, this work juxtaposes the perspectives of government and industry with the perspectives of local communities. The oral history and ethnographic material provides an extremely significant record of local Aboriginal perspectives on histories of mining and development in their regions. With contributions by: Patricia Boulter Jean-Sébastien Boutet Emilie Cameron Sarah Gordon Heather Green Jane Hammond Joella Hogan Arn Keeling Tyler Levitan Hereward Longley Scott Midgley Kevin O'Reilly Andrea Procter John Sandlos Alexandra Winto