Environmental Risks Associated with Beneficial End Uses of Mine Lakes in Southwestern Australia |
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Authors: | Robert G Doupé Alan J Lymbery |
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Affiliation: | (1) Centre for Sustainable Mine Lakes, Fish Health Unit, School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Murdoch Univ, Western Australia 6150 |
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Abstract: | Abstract Lakes develop when pits from open cut mines are left to fill with groundwater. In recent years, mining companies, mining communities,
and regulatory agencies have begun to consider potential beneficial end uses for mine lakes. Beneficial end uses are unlikely
to be without environmental impacts, however, and a proper consideration of the total benefit to the community should consider
them. This paper briefly reviews potential beneficial end uses and possible environmental impacts that might arise with them
for mine lakes in the Collie Basin, a coal mining region in Western Australia. We identified eight distinct, but not necessarily
incompatible, end uses from a search of the literature on mine lakes throughout the world: recreation and tourism, wildlife
conservation, aquaculture, irrigation, livestock water, potable water, industrial water, and chemical extraction. Recreation,
conservation, and possibly aquaculture use the mine lake directly, whereas the other end uses utilise extracted water. All
end uses have the potential to have environmental effects, with the most common being an actual or perceived impact on human
health and safety. A semi-quantitative risk assessment, using published literature sources, identified wildlife conservation
as the end use with the least environmental risk, and irrigation as the end use with the greatest environmental risk. Such
risks need to be balanced against economic and social benefits. There is an urgent need for a regulatory framework to address
mine lake options. |
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Keywords: | " target="_blank"> Beneficial end uses Collie Basin environmental impacts mine lakes |
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