• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

Several mines including Namil, Solim and Jungbong which are located in the Gyeonggi and Kangwon province have been abandoned and closed since 1980 due to "The promotion policy of mining industry". An enormous amount of mining wastes was disposed without proper treatment, which caused soil pollution in tailing dam and ore-dressing plant areas. However, any quantitative assessment was not performed about soil and water pollution by transporting mining wastes such as acid mine drainage, mine tailing, and rocky waste. In this research, heavy metals in mining wastes were analyzed according to leaching method which used 0.1 N HCl and total solution method which used Aqua-regia to recognize the ecological effect of distance from hot spot. We sampled tailings, rocky wastes and soils around the abandoned mine. Chemical and physical parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total organic carbon (TOC), soil texture and heavy metal concentration were analyzed. The range of soil's pH is between 4.3 and 6.4 in the tailing dam and oredressing plant area due to mining activity. Total concentrations of As, Cu, and Pb in soil near ore dressing plant area are 250.9, 249.3 and 117.2 mg/kg respectively, which are higher than any other ones near tailing dam area. Arsenic concentration in tailing dams is 31.0 mg/kg, which is also considered as heavily polluted condition comparing with the remediation required level(RRL) in "Soil environment conservation Act".

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.183-193
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• 2006

Several metalliferous and coal mines, including Seojin and Okdong located at the Kangwon province, were abandoned or closed since 1989 due to the mining industry promotion policy and thus disposed an enormous amount of mining wastes without a proper treatment facilities, resulting in water and soil pollution in the downstream areas. However, no quantitative assessment was made on soil and water pollution by the transport of mining wastes such as acid mine drainage, mine tailing, and rocky waste. In this research, total and fractional concentrations of heavy metals in mining wastes were analyzed and accordingly the degree of water and soil pollutions in the stream area were quantitatively assessed employing the several pollution indices. Concentrations of Ni, Cd, and Pb in soils near the abandoned coal mine areas were 1,240.0, 25.0 and 1,093.0 mg/kg, respectively, and these concentrations were higher than those in soils near the closed metalliferous mine areas. Also Cu concentrations in soils near the tailing dams were about 1967 mg/kg, which is considered as very polluted level. Results demonstrated that soil at the abandoned mine areas were highly contaminated by AMO, tailing, and effluents of the mining wastes. Therefore, a prompt countermeasure on the mining waste treatment and remediation of the codntaminated water and soil should be made to the abandoned or closed metalliferous and coal mines located at the abandoned mine area.