Acid-Mine Drainage

Draining mine tunnels contribute metals and acidity to streams throughout the western United States. One remediation strategy that is increasing in usage is the emplacement of hydraulic bulkheads to impound water within the subsurface. Potential secondary effects of bulkhead usage are difficult to quantify however because of the inherent complexity of most mountain hydrologic systems. In...

From 1986 to 2001, the Upper Arkansas Toxics Project focused on metal transport in streams affected by mining. Studies were conducted to quantify the physical, chemical, and biological processes affecting trace metal fate and transport.

Since 1986, the USGS Hard-Rock Mining Toxic-Substances Hydrology Project has focused on metal transport in streams affected by mining. Tracer-injection studies in St. Kevin Gulch, near Leadville, Colorado, helped the USGS design methods to characterize loading from mining activities on a watershed scale. Tracer-injection studies were done in 1995, in support of the planning needs of ederal Land...

Illinois Gulch, near Breckenridge, Colorado, is on the State of Colorado 303(d) list of impaired waters because of elevated concentrations of cadmium and zinc. Cadmium and zinc concentrations exceed chronic aquatic life standards in the upper portion of Illinois Gulch, and pH is circumneutral.

Metal loading from abandoned mines and groundwater in Leavenworth Creek causes aquatic life water-quality standards to be exceeded at the mouth of Leavenworth Creek.

OTEQ is a mathematical simulation model used to characterize the fate and transport of waterborne solutes in streams and rivers. The model is formed by coupling a solute transport model with a chemical equilibrium submodel. The solute transport model is based on OTIS, a model that considers the physical processes of advection, dispersion, lateral inflow, and transient storage. The equilibrium...

Since 1986, the USGS Hard-Rock Mining Toxic-Substances Hydrology Project has focused on metal transport in streams affected by mining. Tracer-injection studies in St. Kevin Gulch, near Leadville, Colorado, helped the USGS design methods to characterize loading from mining activities on a watershed scale. Tracer-injection studies were done in 1995, in support of the planning needs of ederal Land...

The Lake Fork emerges from the outlet of Turquoise Lake at the Sugarloaf dam and flows approximately 5 miles before joining the upper Arkansas River. The first reach of the Lake Fork downstream from the dam is affected by drainage from abandoned mines in the Sugarloaf mining district. Whereas remediation of some of the mine sites has been initiated, Federal Land holders are interested in assessing...

Fluvial tailings deposits stored in the floodplain of the upper Arkansas River represent a potential nonpoint source of contamination to surface and ground waters. The U.S. Geological Survey has been cooperating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to monitor a lowcost, insitu remediation technique for the deposits.

The USGS Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative (AMLI) is developing and demonstrating scientific knowledge and technologies that will help Federal land management agencies clean up contamination in areas near abandoned hardrock mines across the Nation. The Initiative is being conducted in two pilot watersheds, the Upper Animas River Basin in Colorado and the Boulder River watershed in Montana, where the...