Sentences with phrase «tailings left»

Floodwaters may also be contaminated with toxic waste washed from tailings left by gold and silver mining, says Linda Figueroa, a wastewater engineer at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

Not exact matches

The low - lying basin was meant to capture the tailings, mostly sand and clay but also some toxic chemicals left over after removing most of the bitumen, or tarry oil, from the ore.

VANCOUVER — The report from an expert panel of engineers confirms that the Mount Polley tailings pond failure was avoidable, but leaves British Columbians with more questions than answers, said New Democrat leader John Horgan.

At one point, the province was left with just one geotechnical engineer and emails released through freedom of information requests showed that staff within the environment ministry had raised warnings that low staffing levels were leading to increased risks, citing tailings pond inspections as a particular area of concern.

Because the world's uranium supply is finite and the continued growth in the numbers of thermal reactors could exhaust the available low - cost uranium reserves in a few decades, it makes little sense to discard this spent fuel or the «tailings» left over from the enrichment process.

Pipkin grew up in Monticello, where a uranium mill operated for 20 years until closing in 1960, leaving a pile of tailings and contamination that became a Superfund clean - up site in 1986.

The Gilt Edge Mine in South Dakota was a gold mine that an insolvent company abandoned in the late 1990s, leaving behind 150 million gallons of acidic heavy - metal - laden water, as well as millions of cubic yards of acid - generating tailings.

The failure to provide an physical barrier between the tailings and water, solids, or other material leaves the tailings vulnerable to extensive penetration of the tailings by plant roots and animals as well as disturbance by freeze and thaw and ice formation and break up impacts.