This is one paper I know I never will read. The title of the paper is Environmental Concerns Regarding Heap Leaching. No idea who the author is. Actually it is not, correctly speaking, a paper; rather it is that scary beast, a Term Paper. This is a description of the paper on the site where it is for sale for $49.75:
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A 5 page paper discussing the environmental concerns related to heap leach operations. What is the process of heap leaching and why is it used? Current issues surrounding the process are briefly examined. Bibliography lists five sources.
Below this description is an invitation: “Submit your Term Paper and get paid for evey sale made.”
Amazing how rich student these days have become that they can afford to spend nearly fifty dollars on a term paper crib that could be gotten free of umpteen web sites, including those I write for in my serious moods. Must be the easy availablity of student loans that makes them so lazy and so profiligate.
The worst part, however, is that professors are setting term papers on such topics and then giving degrees to students who pay for the paper without even thinking it through themselves.
I see a related paper is Developing the environmentally friendly golf course. That tells you all you need to know about the students and their professors: rich tree-hugging golfers using non-metal clubs.
Ah well, its the weekend–you cannot expect profound anaylses. Enjoy.
For what it is worth, here is one scurrilous piece I found about the Pebble Mine on the Fly Fisherman :
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Heap-leach processing is the most environmentally damaging form of ore processing (For more detailed information on cyanide heap-leach processing, read the New York Times serial article “The Cost of Gold.” In heap-leach open-pit mining, huge shovels gouge up as much as .5 million tons of rock per day from the earth (in this case tundra) and miners drizzle diluted cyanide over it for years to separate the gold. The piles of rock are exposed to rain and air and become environmental time bombs, with sulfides mixing over time with rain to create sulfuric acid. The acid pollutes streams and frees heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, and mercury (and arsenic) that are dangerous to humans, wildlife, and especially fish. Mining officials say they can cap mine waste and use lime to neutralize the acid. But scientists have found that cyanide can change to other toxic forms, particularly in cold climates and can migrate from capped waste piles in wet climates. Bristol Bay is cold in winter and wet during spring run-off.
Finally here is the description of the Kisladag heap leach pad–you know that mine shut down while the Turkish high court takes a summer vacation:
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The leach pad facility will be constructed to the north of the Ovacik settlement. The pad will be located on the western flank of Kisladag Mountain and bounded on the westside by the main basin drainage course flowing from Ovacik northwards. Future leach pad extensions will be to the north. The heap leach facility will use cyanide solutions to recover gold from crushed ore. This widely used mining chemical is hazardous, and during operations, a comprehensive Cyanide Management Plan will be in place to ensure proper procedures are followed. The heap leach facility will be equipped with a lining system consisting of a 2 mm thick synthetic liner and a 30 centimetre layer of compacted soil to prevent cyanide from entering the environment. On closure the heap will be washed with fresh water to bring the cyanide levels in the heap to below regulated levels. For final reclamation, the leach pad will be contoured, capped with a soil layer to trap meteoric water and re-vegetated to promote trans-evaporation. Under normal operating conditions all process liquids will be recycled within the process, there will be no discharge of liquids to the environment other than the discharge of clean water that meets the discharge limits under the relevant water discharge regulations. The design of the Project incorporates measures for the prevention and prompt mitigation of uncontrolled releases of liquid effluent to the environment resulting from accidents, equipment failures or natural catastrophes.
I hope no one tells these anti-heap leach people about the presence of cyanate and cyanide in almonds and fruit pits/seeds. They might break down if they realize their bags of trail mix are ticking environmental time bombs.
Dear Patrick,
We know how much cyanide present in fruits, cigarettes, and even human blood.
Interestingly enough, folks like you seem to disgard the difference between 0.2 milligrams and 400 000 tons. that makes 2 000 000 000 000 (two thrillion) times more.
This is another link about a short history for you to study after some maths.
http://www.mpi.org.au/campaigns/cyanide/cyanide_spills/
Take that kind of propaganda to fool yourself and try drinking 10 mg in a glass of water as an experiment if you dare.
I would recommend you to learn a bit of civilisation if you ever survive:)
By the way, there were 1000 people poisoned in Kisladag with cyanide levels hundreds of times more than natural.
Eldorado claims that a leek is not present at all, and the poisoning was due to a bacterial edipemic from use of old sanitary water pipes.
And tragicomic thing is that, they said on their web site:
we do not use arsenic in our prosesses,
One wonders how come miners do not know what Acid Mine Drainage is.
Obviously cyanide is dangerous, they use it for the death penalty in some places. But compare it to other gold processing routes and it’s a hell of a lot more benign and safe. Smelting the gold out of arsenopyrites puts arsenic in a difficult/costly to clean gaseous form. Amalgamating gold with mercury leads to all the problems associated with mercury ( http://www.unites.uqam.ca/gmf/intranet/gmp/index_gmp.htm ) and methyl mercury (remember Minata disease?). Cyanide is dangerous but it does break down under mild UV conditions in the sun rather than bioaccumulating in the higher ups on the food chain.
It’s foolish to argue that mining by products or processing methods are 100% safe or environmentally friendly. They never are. However, gunning down the safest or best methods available so far because they don’t conform to unrealistic and uneducated ideals of environmental purity doesn’t get us anywhere. The question isn’t, “Can we live without mining?” because modern society unequivocally can’t. The computer you typed that comment on has gold plating on circuit connections. The car that delivered it to you has a platinum catalytic converter. Instead, the question is, “How much can we reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of mining?” At this point in gold processing, cyanide use is the best there is. Fearmongering over cyanide or calling for a ban on its use will get you nowhere. Calling for better environmental regulations in the countries where these spills happen, more accountable governments and 3rd party review/inspection processes – these are much more productive and effective solutions.
Also – acid mine drainage is a result of the mining technique, not the reagent used for hydrometallurgical extraction. Cyanide use and acid mine drainage are tangentially related, not causally.