Environmental impact of coal mining on water regime and its management

Abstract

Coal mining is one of the core industries that contribute to the economic development of a country but deteriorate the environment. Being the primary source of energy coal has become essential to meet the energy demand of a country. It is excavated by both opencast and underground mining methods and affects the environment, especially water resources, by discharging huge amounts of mine water. The mine water may be acidic or neutral depending upon the pyrite content in the coal as inorganic impurities. Acid mine drainage occurs in those mines in which sulphur content is found in the range of 1-5% in the form of Pyrite (FeS2). It degrades the water quality of the region in terms of lowering the pH of the surrounding water resources and increasing the level of total suspended solids, total dissolved solids and some heavy metals. In non acidic mines, water quality shows high hardness, TSS and bacterial contaminants. The leachate water from overburden dump are found enriched in metal concentration especially Fe, Cu, Mn and Ni except in one of the clayey dumps. High values of hardness of mine water reduces it's utility in domestic purposes. The article illustrates the quality of acidic and non acidic mine water and leachate characteristics of opencast coal mining OB dumps. Pollutants such as TSS, TDS, oil and grease and heavy metal are found in the coal mining waste effluents. Management of these liquid waste at the primary level and secondary level have also been suggested to control the pollution level at the source.