MINING, LAND USE, AND WATER QUALITY - ISSUES OF COMPATIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

Mineral resource production is vital to modern, industrialized societies. Unfortunately, mineral production has caused trememdous damage to other needed resources. Huge tracts of land are often disturbed and degraded during mineral extraction and processing. Air, water, and soil resources are degraded. Major impoundment failures have contaminated rivers in the USA, UK, Spain, Romania/Hungary, and the Phillipines. People in South America and Indonesia have witnessed large rivers, drainage basins, and coastal environments ruined by direct discharge of tailings and other wastes. Mining activities in the USA and Canada have produced waters of extreme acidity (with pH values as low as -3.6) and extremely high concentrations of dissolved metals. Mineral extraction and processing in alpine terrains cause cleanup to be slow, expensive, and non-routine. Cyanide and mercury, used to extract gold, are not always adequately contained and their release into the environment can be devastating. Hard-rock mining and mineral processing have mobilized large quantities of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Sb, As, and S into the environment and injured aquatic and terrestrial biota.

Global demands for land, biological, and water resources are, increasingly, in direct conflict with global demands for mineral resources. The driving force behind this conflict is the escalating population of the world. When this driver is combined with the higher per capita material demands of developed countries and the socio-political demands to achieve a cleaner environment, the result is incompatible with the desire of developing countries to attain the economic and material well-being of developed countries. The current situation is unsustainable as long as mineral and water resources are finite, the world's population continues to increase at present rates, greater conservation efforts are not practiced, and large-scale metal recycling remains uneconomic. Conflict resolution of competing resource demands will require compromises by industries, governments, and environmental groups through thoughtful, balanced planning.