Acid mine drainage risks - A modeling approach to siting mine facilities in Northern Minnesota USA

- Watershed-scale groundwater flow and transport model helps site mine facilities.
- Surface mine-waste sources contaminate rivers faster and with higher loads.
- Underground mine-waste sources contaminate rivers for a much longer time.
- Mine facilities should be sited where long-term effects of failures are the least.

SummaryMost watershed-scale planning for mine-caused contamination concerns remediation of past problems while future planning relies heavily on engineering controls. As an alternative, a watershed scale groundwater fate and transport model for the Rainy Headwaters, a northeastern Minnesota watershed, has been developed to examine the risks of leaks or spills to a pristine downstream watershed. The model shows that the risk depends on the location and whether the source of the leak is on the surface or from deeper underground facilities. Underground sources cause loads that last longer but arrive at rivers after a longer travel time and have lower concentrations due to dilution and attenuation. Surface contaminant sources could cause much more short-term damage to the resource. Because groundwater dominates baseflow, mine contaminant seepage would cause the most damage during low flow periods. Groundwater flow and transport modeling is a useful tool for decreasing the risk to downgradient sources by aiding in the placement of mine facilities. Although mines are located based on the minerals, advance planning and analysis could avoid siting mine facilities where failure or leaks would cause too much natural resource damage. Watershed scale transport modeling could help locate the facilities or decide in advance that the mine should not be constructed due to the risk to downstream resources.