EXAMINING CONDUCTIVITY AND SUBSURFACE HEAVY METAL CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA THROUGH THE USE OF INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA OPTICAL EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY

Acid mine drainage (AMD) emanating from three abandoned mines discharge an estimated 126 pounds of iron per day into the Tanoma remediation wetlands in Pennsylvania. The mine system contains approximately two billion gallons of AMD, and feeds the remediation wetlands 1500-2800 gallons of AMD per minute seasonally into the mitigation system. This high rate of discharge produces areas where high velocity flow scours the wetland bottom, moving precipitants and destroying vegetation roots.

Although the discharge into Tanoma is known to be damaging, other discharges to surface waters have shown metal concentrations several times higher, and are left untreated to enter reservoir systems. This draws attention to these remediation sites, the processes used to treat them, and the source of these pollutants. With most of the research that’s been conducted in the AMD remediation field relating to remediation ponds within the Tanoma Remediation system and its iron concentrations, there is very little information about the effects of these large influxes of metals from the subsurface mine areas and the effects it has on biodiversity and methane production within an AMD remediation site. This research investigates the conductivity, presence and concentration of metals below the Tanoma treatment wetland and other subsurface water sources using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Furthermore, our ICP data is compared with surface metal concentrations and methane levels within the Tanoma AMD site to identify relationships and the potential effect they have on the productivity and effectiveness of the remediation site through time.