POTENTIAL REMEDIATION METHODS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY TO THE TRI-STATE MINING DISTRICT, USA (Invited Presentation)

The Tri-State Mining District of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma (TSMD) experienced roughly a century of mining, from the late 1800’s to about 1970. This mining history resulted in: waste rock piles near production centers, smelter emissions (dispersing metals into soils), and subsidence associated with abandoned mine shafts. In the early 1980s, the USEPA designated Tar Creek (OK), Cherokee County (KS) and Oronogo-Duenweg (MO) as Superfund sites.

Areas within the TSMD are reported to still exhibit Cd, Pb, and Zn concentrations above guidelines (Johnson et al., 2016), with the highest Pb and Zn concentrations spatially are associated with the former mining and smelting centers. A review of common remedial approaches to mined lands (material removal, encapsulation, phytoremediation, dilution) will be presented. Each method will be discussed in light of historical or potential future remedial actions at the TSMD. Some of these methods have already been partly implemented while other actions remain for the future. Included in the discussion will be the interesting situation posed by the TSMD mined areas spanning across multiple state lines and different US EPA regions.