Mine reclamation practices - a case study
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Date
2003-11-28
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Abstract
The growth of surface mining in any locality brings about socio-economic concerns. Mining for precious minerals almost always cause environmental problems of varying degrees. The original landform may undergo distortion and degradation and there could be a-rise land use conflict among others.
This thesis sets out to analyse whether surface mining operation lead to permanent loss of farmlands of the local communities and that the adverse impact of surface mining is only temporary and can be corrected during and at the end of the mining operation.
Technical information was obtained from the Ashanti Goldfields Ayanfuri Limited, (AGAL), a subsidiary of Ashanti Goldfields Company, Obuasi Mine Reclamation Project. Information on mine water was gathered by taking specimen water samples from various pits on the mine and this was compared with baseline levels of streams in the study area which was available from the pre-mining Environmental Impact Assessment report.
Interviews with persons in the local communities particularly those whose farmlands were taken provided an insight into the extent of the problem of land-use conflict. A pilot reclamation project carried out by AGAL and also talking to equipment contractors provided the guidelines and figures for the computation of a provisional reclamation cost of the Ayanfuri project.
Various legislatives governing the mining environment was analysed to know how far they have influenced reclamation efforts.
This thesis concludes that the AGAL mining project’s negative impact was being addressed positively. An early implementation of such a project could have improved its monitoring and supervision dimensions thereby enhancing its chances of success.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Mining Engineering, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Master of Science degree in Mining Engineering, 2003