Where is copper sulfide mining done?
Many of the currently operating copper sulfide mines are located in the arid southwest, where precipitation is limited, and communication between surface and groundwater resources is limited. More significant impacts could be expected at mines in wetter climates, with abundant surface water and shallow groundwater.
What is copper sulfide mining?
The Threat of Copper-Sulfide Mining Sulfide mining is the process of extracting trace amounts of copper, nickel and other metals from sulfide-bearing ores, which produces sulfuric acid. This type of mining is so toxic that there has never been a sulfide mine that has not contaminated surrounding water sources.
Why is sulfide mining bad?
Mining sulfide rock releases acid and toxic metals and contaminants that pollute rivers and groundwater for hundreds of years, long after the profits are spent and the products buried in landfills. To date, no sulfide mine has been able to operate without causing some form of pollution in the surrounding environment.
Why is mining copper bad for the environment?
The smelting process can also create pollution. Smelting often produces large volumes of low concentration sulfur dioxide that is not worth further processing to remove the sulfur. Acid rain resulting from the combination of rain and SO2 can cause damage to crops, trees and buildings for many miles down-wind.
How does copper mining affect humans?
Sulfide-ore copper mining has the potential to release numerous chemicals known to negatively affect human health, including mercury, arsenic, lead, asbestos-like fibers, and air pollution. These chemicals are included in the World Health Organization’s “top 10 chemicals of major public health concern.”
Why mining in Minnesota is bad?
Sulfide mining can produce acid waste and sulfates that mobilize the release of heavy metals into the environment. These metals include known neurotoxins such as lead and mercury. Mining activities also create airborne fibers and pollutants that can contribute to increased morbidity.
How is copper mining polluted?
In addition to tailings dam failures and pipeline leaks, sulfide-ore copper mines can pollute through seepage from underground pits and surface waste rock and sulfide-bearing ore. By exposing sulfides minerals in the pit walls to oxygen and water, they are able to produce acid mine drainage.
How does mining copper affect people?
Especially in high rainfall areas, this creates the phenomenon of acid mists and acid rains, that can fall many miles from the mine and smelters, causing damage to buildings, crops and most important, human health.
Is copper environmentally friendly?
Copper’s superior thermal and electrical conductivity, combined with its 100% recyclability make copper a truly green material perfect for building a sustainable world.
Is copper mined ethically?
Copper, like so many important metals, rarely occurs in its native form, instead forming mineral ores (sulfides and oxides) within rocks once permeated by hot, metal-bearing, magmatic fluids. Copper ores are economical to mine at surprisingly low grade.
What are the negatives of mining copper?
They include: Accidents that cause injury, illness and death to workers, in mining particularly, but also elsewhere in the production process. Accidents, such as dam failures, that impact the local population directly, affecting their health, property and the quality of their surroundings.
Is taconite still mined in Minnesota?
Minnesota currently has seven operating taconite plants which make the pellets. About 44 million tons of taconite pellets were shipped from the state in 1996. That’s enough to fill over 500,000 railroad cars! Today, only the Mesabi Range still has iron ore/taconite mining taking place.
What is the use of copper sulphate in metal industry?
The metal industry uses large quantities of copper sulphate as an electrolyte in copper refining, for copper coating steel wire prior to wire drawing and in various copper plating processes. The mining industry employs it as an activator in the concentration by froth flotation of lead, zinc, cobalt and gold ores.
How is copper extracted from copper sulfide ores?
This process uses a series of physical steps and high temperatures to extract and purify copper from copper sulfide ores, in four basic steps: 1) froth flotation, 2) thickening, 3) smelting, and 4) electrolysis.
How do you leach copper sulfate from ore?
The leaching reagent (dilute sulfuric acid) is sprayed through sprinklers on top of the heap pile and allowed to trickle down through the heap, where it dissolves the copper from the ore. The resulting “pregnant” leach solution of sulfuric acid and copper sulfate is collected in a small pool.
What is the mining process for copper?
Copper mining is usually performed using open-pit mining, in which a series of stepped benches are dug deeper and deeper into the earth over time. To remove the ore, boring machinery is used to drill holes into the hard rock, and explosives are inserted into the drill holes to blast and break the rock.