• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.9-18
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• 2003

Sampling of waters from each stage of treatment system (Successive Alkalinity Producing System; SAPS), tailings seepage, and spring near the Hanchang coal mine of Kangwon Province were carried out seasonally and analyzed to evaluate the source and possible path of groundwater contamination by acid mine drainage (AM). Sulfur isotope compositions were measured to identify the origin of groundwater contaminations and the sulfate reduction processes in the SAPS. Low pH and high metal concentration of spring water indicates possibility of the groundwater contamination by AMD. Removal efficiency of acidity of the SAPS was 18.17 g/$\textrm{m}^2$/day on an average and the metal removal efficiency was almost 100%, which was higher than those of other treatment systems. However, no appreciable decrease of sulfur content and almost similar sulfur isotope compositions of water from each stage of the treatment system may suggest incomplete or very poor sulfate reduction by sulfate reducing bacteria. Chemical and sulfur isotope compositions showed that spring water was contaminated by seepage from mine tailings. And seepage of stonewall, a part of treatment system was affected by both tailings seepage and mine adit drainage. In this study site, the treatment system was constructed for the only AMD from mine adit not for tailings seepages, which resulted in the groundwater contamination from tailing seepages. Similar situation is expected in other abandoned coal mine areas.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2004

The soil samples were collected from the paddy field near the mine tailing dumps in the abandoned Duckum mine in Korea. In the laboratory, the soil solution was extracted from the soil using centrifuge, and analysed for the chemical composition. Physical and chemical soil properties were also analysed. Kaolinite is the main clay minerals in the paddy soil and the CEC value is therefore relatively low. Nearly all soil samples show enrichment in their trace elemental concentrations(Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn) compared with natural background level. Some soil samples exceed the soil remediation intervention values for Cd, Pb and Zn and target value for Cu, when compared with Dutch standard, whereas As, Ni and Cr are in normal range. Lead concentrations in some samples near the mine tailing dumps also exceed the standard for remediation act for agricultural area set by Korean soil conservation law. The trace elemental concentrations are higher in the paddy soil nearer the mine tailing dumps and lower for the samples from distance. Similar trend with distance is found for the soil solution chemistry but the decrease with distance from the mine tailing dumps are sharper than the changes in soil chemistry. Cadmium, Cu and Pb concentrations in the soil solution are very low, ranging from a tenth and hundredths to a maximum of several mg/l, whereas their concentrations in soils are highly enriched for natural background. Most of the trace elements are thought to be either removed by reduced iron sulphides or iron oxides, depending on the redox changes. Geochemical equilibrium modelling indicate the presence of solubility controlling solid phases for Cd and Pb, whereas Zn and Cu might have been controlled by adsorption/desorption processes. Although pollutants migration through solution phase are thought to be limited by adsorption onto various Fe, Mn solid phases, the pollutants exist as easily releasable fractions such as exchangeable site. In this case, the paddy soil would act as pollutant pool, which will supply to plants in situ. whenever the geochemical conditions favour.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.414-431
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• 2016

There are numerous closed and abandoned mines in Korea, from which diverse heavy metals (e.g., As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn) are released into the surrounding soil, groundwater, surface water, and crops, potentially resulting in detrimental effects on the health of nearby residents. Therefore, we performed human risk assessments of two abandoned metal mines, Yanggok (YG) and Samsanjeil (SJ). The exposure parameters used in this assessment were specific to residents near mines and the included exposure pathways were relevant to areas around metal mines. The computed total excess carcinogenic risks for both areas exceeded the acceptable carcinogenic risk ($1{\times}10^{-6}$), indicating that these areas are likely unsafe due to a carcinogenic hazard. In contrast, the non-carcinogenic risks of the two areas differed among the studied receptors. The hazard indices were higher than the unit risk (=1.0) for male and female adults in YG and male adults in SJ, suggesting that there are non-carcinogenic risks for these groups in the study areas. However, the hazard indices for children in YG and female adults and children in SJ were lower than the unit risk. Consumption of groundwater and crops grown in the area were identified as major exposure pathways for carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic hazards in both areas. Finally, the dominant metals contributing to carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks were As and As, Cu, and Pb, respectively. In addition, the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks of YG were evaluated to be 10 and 4 times higher than those of SJ, respectively, resulted from the relatively higher exposure concentration of As in groundwater within SJ area. Because of lacking of several exposure parameters, some of average daily dose (ADD) could not be computed in this study. Furthermore, it is likely that the ADDs of crop-intake pathway included some errors because they were calculated using soil exposure concentrations and bioconcentration factor (BCF) rather than using crop exposure concentrations.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.695-708
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• 2008

In order to evaluate the geochemical behaviors of elements with waste rocks in the abandoned Jangpoong Cu mine area, total concentration analysis and leaching experiments were performed. The content of elements within waste rocks compared with background values decreased in order of As>>Cu>Pb>Cd>Co. Leaching experiments were carried out at various extraction environments, considering the acid rain ($0.00001{\sim}0.001N\;HNO_3$) and the acid mine drainage ($0.001{\sim}0.1N$ HNO3). After 24 hours of reaction with different acidic solution, the leaching characteristics of waste rocks were classified into three types according to final pH of leaching solution. Type I refers to the case that the final pH of leaching solution was lower than that of the reaction solution due to the dissolution of acidic minerals from rocks, while type 2 and 3 refer to the case that the final pH maintained higher than that of the reaction solution. Theses types include in acid buffering minerals such as clay minerals and carbonate minerals. The leaching characteristics of the elements after the reaction could be categorized into As-Co-Fe, Cu-Mn-Cd-Zn, and Pb. As-Co-Fe started to get leached under 2.5 of pH regardless of changes in the final pH, and Cu-Mn-Cd-Zn showed different initial leaching pH according to the types of final pH changes. Based on the pH value where leaching started regardless of leaching concentration, the relative mobility of each element was in the order of Mn Zn>Cd>Cu>>Fe Co>As>Pb. Thus, more higher mobility elements(Zn, Mn and Cu) were leached by reacting with acid rain water. Acid mine drainage may result in distributions of elements having relatively less mobility(As, Fe, Co and Pb).

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.43-51
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• 2006

Generally abandoned mine soils have serious problems for introducing vegetation such as nutrient deficiency, poor physical properties, and phytotoxicity due to high levels of heavy metals. It is required to improve soil amenity for revegetation. One of its strategies is using organic materials such as compost manure and sludge. The pot experiments was conducted to evaluate the effects of pig manure and municipal sewage sludge on revegetation of mining area soil surface with Artemisia princeps and Zoysia japonica. Application rate of pig manure and municipal sewage sludge was $75{\sim}225$ Mg/ha and $150{\sim}450$ Mg/ha, respectively. The results showed that the application of manure and sludge increased organic matter about two-fold and total nitrogen contents about five-fold of mine soil and improved the growth of plants in all treatments compared to the control. The result of plant tissue analysis showed that both plants accumulate Cd, Cu and Zn in root tissue rather than shoot tissues. Increased sludge application reduced Zn accumulation in both plant tissue. Sequential extraction results indicated that addition of soil amendment induced increment of organically bound fractions of Cu and Zn. Organically bound fraction of Zn was significantly increased from 7.84% to 13.58% in Artemisia princeps planted soil and from 7.84% to 14.16% in Zoysia japonica planted soil, thereby bioavailability of heavy metals was reduced. The results suggested that application of organic materials to mine soil can reduce phytotoxicity of heavy metals and be helpful in introducing successful revegetation.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.331-341
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• 2023

When creating a soil contamination map using geostatistical techniques, there are various sources that can affect prediction errors. In this study, a grid-based soil contamination map was created from the sampling data of heavy metal concentrations in soil in abandoned mine areas using Ordinary Kriging. Five factors that were judged to affect the prediction error of the soil contamination map were selected, and the variation of the root mean squared error (RMSE) between the predicted value and the actual value was analyzed based on the Leave-one-out technique. Then, using a machine learning algorithm, derived the top three factors affecting the RMSE. As a result, it was analyzed that Variogram Model, Minimum Neighbors, and Anisotropy factors have the largest impact on RMSE in the Standard interpolation. For the variogram models, the Spherical model showed the lowest RMSE, while the Minimum Neighbors had the lowest value at 3 and then increased as the value increased. In the case of Anisotropy, it was found to be more appropriate not to consider anisotropy. In this study, through the combined use of geostatistics and machine learning, it was possible to create a highly reliable soil contamination map at the local scale, and to identify which factors have a significant impact when interpolating a small amount of soil heavy metal data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.121-130
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• 2010

Metals and sulfate can be considerably dissolved at low pH condition in the acid mine drainage(AMD) and it would make an environmental problems. There are only few of acid mine drainage treatment systems in Korea which are operating, but these still have an effect on the surrounding stream. In this study, quantification of indicator microorganisms was conducted to judge the environmental impact of AMD on microflora by quantitative real-time PCR in the drainage samples of four mines and the water samples of each surrounding stream. Two species of iron reducing bacteria(Rhodoferax ferrireducens T118 and Acidiphilium cryptum JF-5) were selected for indicator bacteria based on 16S rRNA cloning analysis, and sulfate reducing bacteria(Desulfosporosinus orientus), iron and sulfur oxidizing bacteria(Acidothiobacillus ferrooxidans) and iron oxidizing bacteria(Leptosprillum ferrooxidans) were included into indicator since these were found in the previous studies on the mining area. Thereafter, the comparative analysis of four mines were established by the microbiological variation index and it was determined that the biological environment effect of AMD is highest in Samtan mine which doesn t contain treatment system by the value.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.80-88
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• 2017

Globally, there has been a lot of research related to recycling coal ash from power plant stations. This research is happening because there is a considerable shortage of sites for reclamation of increased coal ash every year. In addition, a variety of environmental pollutants have appeared because of mining activity. Abandoned coal mine, pits, and mine tailing piles caused pollutants to come to the surface resulting in serious damage for humans and the environment. Therefore in this study, we investigated whether or not coal ashes have the ability to prevent several environmental problems by mining in Korea and a manageable form recycling coal ashes. In overseas countries, there is a sufficient field of applicable cases where coal ash is used for neutralizing AMD (Acid Mine Drainage), covering of the waste materials, grouting, and soil amendments. However in Korea, since the coal ash is classified as a 'waste', there is an insufficient field applicable cases so far. Therefore it is necessary to establish a specific standard and management system for the utilization of coal ash based on the relevant precedent cases applied abroad in order to prevent environmental pollution caused by mining activity in Korea.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.251-256
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• 2017

This study presents measures to enhance the efficiency of Successive Alkalinity Producing Systems(SAPS), a natural biological purification method that prevents environmental pollution arising from the release of Acid Mine Drainage(AMD) from abandoned mines into rivers and groundwater. The treatment of AMD using SAPS is based on biological processing technology that mostly involves sulfate reducing bacteria(SRB). It has been proven effective in real-world applications, and has been employed in various projects on the purification of AMD. However, seasonal decrease in temperature leads to a deterioration in the efficiency of the process because sulfate-reducing activity is almost non-existent during cold winters and early spring even if SRB is able to survive. Against this backdrop, this study presents measures to enhance the activity of the SRB of the organic layer by integrating light emitting diode(LED)s in SAPS and to maintain the active temperature using LEDs in cold winters. Given that mine drainage facilities are located in areas where power cannot be easily supplied, solar cell modules are proposed as the main power source for LEDs. By conducting further research based on the present study, it will be possible to enhance the efficiency of AMD treatment under extreme cold weather using solar energy and LEDs, which will serve as an environmentally-friendly solution in line with the era of green growth.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.78-86
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• 2009

Applicability of CaO and steel slag as stabilizers in the treatment of field and paddy soils near Pungjeong mine contaminated with arsenic and cationic heavy metals was investigated from batch and column experiments. Immobilization of heavy metals was evaluated by TCLP dissolution test. Immobility of heavy metal ions was less than 15% when steel slag alone was used. This result suggests that $Fe_2O_3$ and $SiO_2$, known as the major component of steel slag, have little effect for the immobilization of heavy metal ions due to acidity of TCLP solution. Immobilization of cationic heavy metals was little affected by the ratio of CaO and steel slag while arsenic removal was increased as the ratio of steel slag to CaO increased. In the column test, concentrations of both arsenic and cationic heavy metals in effluents were below the water discharge guideline over the entire reaction period. This result can be explained by the immobilization of cationic heavy metals from the increased pH in soil solution as well as by the formation of insoluble $Ca_3(AsO_4)_2$. From this work, it is possible to suggest that arsenic and cationic heavy metals can be concurrently stabilized by application of both CaO and steel slag.