Mining Waste Impoundment and Processing Facility Compliance

Our experience includes pre-development and post-closure environmental monitoring and compliance for ore processing facilities and base metal and phosphate mines. Our team includes industry professionals and research/academic-level geochemists with over 20 years of experience working on mining projects located throughout North America and Australia. Our team possesses the skills and knowledge required to address complex geochemical interactions and attenuation mechanisms of redox-sensitive transition metals, radiological constituents, nutrients, and non-metals in the environment. In addition to groundwater characterization and rehabilitation projects, our human health and ecological risk assessors, engineers, and compliance teams support critical aspects of environmental compliance at mining and ore processing facilities throughout the lifecycle of mining and mineral processing.

Our team’s recent project experience includes:

  • Conceptual hydrogeochemical models of inorganic constituent fate and transport in groundwater at closed aluminum smelters and refineries throughout North America and Australia.
  • Post-closure groundwater monitoring at a phosphate mine in Nevada.
  • Leakage assessment at a fluorosilicate disposal impoundment in Florida.
  • Organic petroleum constituent fate, transport, and attenuation at aluminum extrusion plants and manganese mining facilities in North America, Australia, and Brazil.
  • Abandoned gold mine closure in Australia.
  • Design and implementation of a groundwater remedial investigation and feasibility study for an RCRA-regulated mining waste disposal impoundment in Illinois.
  • Ecological risk assessments at closed aluminum smelters throughout North America and Australasia.
  • Bench scale testing to support the design of manufactured wetlands to manage groundwater at a mine waste impoundment in New York.
  • Pilot scale treatment system for stormwater discharge at a former mining facility in North Carolina.
  • Monitored natural attenuation assessments for groundwater at mining facilities located in North America and Australia.
  • Reviewed efficacy of legacy pump and treat systems and completed hydrogeochemical studies to optimize system operation at former ore processing and refining facilities in Western Australia and Texas.
  • Monitoring well scaling assessment at a former ore refinery in Texas.
  • Due diligence reviews.

Relevant Staff Publications:

  1. Whitmore, C., M. Kauffman, and S. Effner. (2013). Application of Column Leaching Tests to Predict Seepage Water Quality from Waste Rock in the Southeast Idaho Phosphate District. Ed. A. Brown, L. Figueroa, and Ch. Wolkersdorfer. International Mine Water Association Annual Conference 2013: Reliable Mine Water Technology, 1, 487–493. https://www.imwa.info/docs/imwa_2013/IMWA2013_Whitmore_492.pdf
  2. Fowler, A., Goulding, N. and Law, S. (2024). Fluoride geochemistry in groundwater at regulated industrial sites. Water Environment Research, 96(8). https://doi.org/10.1002/wer.11105
  3. Telfeyan, K., S.D. Ware, K.H. Birdsell, and P.R. Reimus. (2018). Comparison of experimental methods for estimating matrix diffusion coefficients for contaminant transport modeling. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 209, 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconhyd.2018.01.006
  4. Parker, S.P., A.E. Wilkes, G.R. Long, N.W. Goulding, and R.S. Ghosh. (2022, February). Development of fluoride protective values for aquatic life using empirical bioavailability models. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 41(2), 396–409. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5259
  5. Wilkes, A.E. (2019, June). Phosphorus mobility and speciation under dynamic redox conditions in shallow eutrophic freshwater systems [Master thesis, University of Vermont]. Vermont EPSCoR. https://epscor.w3.uvm.edu/bree/?node=4681
  6. Telfeyan, K., P.W. Reimus, H. Boukhalfa, and S.D. Ware. (2020). Aging effects on Cesium-137 (137Cs) sorption and transport in association with clay colloids. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 566, 316–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2020.01.033
  7. Kallio, I., C. Gammons, and S.R. Poulson. (2019). Stable isotope, fluid inclusion, and ore mineralogy studies of the Hog Heaven mining district, Montana. Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Special Publication 121, 133–142. https://mbmg.mtech.edu/pdf-publications/SP121.pdf
  8. Kallio, I. M. (2018). Carlin-type gold deposits: current exploration targets and techniques. Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Special Publication 120, 137–139.

See more of our project experience.

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