Mining can create a number of environmental problems. In the search for useful minerals, other substances are often discarded in the landscape. If these substances are toxic and they enter the water supply, wildlife and people may be affected. Mining can also cause serious physical damage to a landscape.
Mining is the extraction of minerals and other geological materials of economic value from deposits on the Earth. Mining adversely affects the environment by inducing loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and contamination of surface water, groundwater, and soil. Mining can also trigger the formation of sinkholes. The leakage of chemicals from mining sites can also have detrimental effects on the health of the population living at or around the mining site.
In some countries, mining companies are expected to adhere to rehabilitation and environmental codes to ensure that the area mined is eventually transformed back into its original state. However, violations of such rules are quite common.
Water Pollution
Mining also causes water pollution which includes metal contamination, increased sediment levels in streams, and acid mine drainage. Pollutants released from processing plants, tailing ponds, underground mines, waste-disposal areas, active or abandoned surface or haulage roads, etc., act as the top sources of water pollution. Sediments released through soil erosion cause siltation or the smothering of stream beds. It adversely impacts irrigation, swimming, fishing, domestic water supply, and other activities dependent on such water bodies. High concentrations of toxic chemicals in water bodies pose a survival threat to aquatic flora and fauna and terrestrial species dependent on them for food. The acidic water released from metal mines or coal mines also drains into surface water or seeps below ground to acidify groundwater. The loss of normal pH of water can have disastrous effects on life sustained by such water.
Damage to Land
The creation of landscape blots like open pits and piles of waste rocks due to mining operations can lead to the physical destruction of the land at the mining site. Such disruptions can contribute to the deterioration of the area’s flora and fauna. There is also a huge possibility that many of the surface features that were present before mining activities cannot be replaced after the process has ended. The removal of soil layers and deep underground digging can destabilize the ground which threatens the future of roads and buildings in the area. For example, lead ore mining in Galena, Kansas between 1980 and 1985 triggered about 500 subsidence collapse features that led to the abandonment of the mines in the area. The entire mining site was later restored between 1994 and1995.
A landscape affected by mining can take a long time to heal. Sometimes it never recovers. Remediation efforts do not always ensure that the biodiversity of the area is restored. Species might be lost permanently.
Some of the negative impacts that mining can have on the environment include the loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, the contamination of surface water, and the formation of sinkholes.
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