Impact assessment of mine drainage water and municipal wastewater on the surface water near the city of Bor

Abstract

Mining and copper production in Bor, in the past hundred years, had a huge impact on the environment of town, but also in a wide region. In the area of Bor, in the zone of Mining and Smelting Company (RTB) activity, over 29,000 ha of land under forests and fields is degraded. The area of degraded agricultural land in the Bor municipality is over 60% of total agricultural land. Wastewater, generated in the sites of RTB Bor, pollutes the Bor River and Krivelj River, which further flow into the Timok River and Danube River. These pollutions are often presented by low pH value, increased content of heavy metal ions, suspended particles and fine particles of flotation tailings, which are deposited in the valleys of these rivers on the area of over 2000 hectares. During the decades of exploitation of ore from the open pit Bor at different locations (“Visoki Planir” – also called “Oštreljski planir”, “Severni planir” dump of ore body “H” (RTH)) gangue and tailings were delayed. The largest amount of tailings, about 150 million tons, was postponed on location Visoki planir. The effect of the mining waste and the impact of the whole process of processing copper ore to the final products on the environment, was conducted during the 4th study period of the project “Management of mining wastetailing dump in the Bor region”, supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion Science and the Japan international cooperation Agency and the Ministry of environment, Mining and Spatial planning of the Republic of Serbia. Influence of season on the level of pollutants in soil and water, the impact on water quality in the river Timok and the River Danube, was conducted during first three periods of project. This paper presents the results of the third study period. The third period of research, which was conducted over a period of 17.10.2012 to 17.01.2013, included a review of pollution sources and define their impact on the environment. The study included the following sources of pollution: mining waste and drainage water originating from the active mine (Bor pit, field 1 Krivelj large tailings, flotation tailings in Bor RTH, metallurgical water), as well as the drainage water from the flotation tailings, which are no longer in operation (field 2 flotation tailings Great Krivelj, drainage water from the old Bor flotation tailings), the old inactive landfill mine gangue (Saraka landfill, Veliki planir – tailings from the old Bor mine, landfill mine gangue from mine RTH) and the city – urban waste water, which are discharged without treatment directly into the watercourse Bor River. wastewater directly pollutes Bor River and Krivalj River.