Mining And Its Impacts

Mining And Its Impacts. Creating Healthy Environments For The Future. , As an important mining town, Galena had numerous mines and smelters, but none was more important than the Eagle-Picher smelter plant north of the pre-1940s Route 66 alignment. The facility operated from around the late 19th century until 2004 and was one of the largest smelters in the U.S., processing lead, zinc, and cadmium ores to produce those metals in addition to zinc oxide, zinc sulfide, manganese sulfate, manganese dioxide, and sulfuric acid. Highly visible on the landscape, "Hell's Half Acre,” once known as "Hickory Flats,” was also an epicenter of activity, as evidenced by the countless mine shafts, waste ore from the mines known as 'chat' and tailings that were present after mining activity ceased., While mining brought a lot of wealth into the region, it also left physical and environmental hazards. Mine shafts and tunnels can collapse, illustrated in 2009 when buildings in Galena partially collapsed after a tunnel gave way. More significantly, the mines occupied the same bedrock as the area's shallow aquifer. When abandoned, water refilled the tunnels and became contaminated, which in turn seeped into local springs and groundwater resources. In addition, large piles of chat and tailings were left on the surface, covering over 4,000 acres of former mining areas. These piles have high concentrations of lead, zinc, and cadmium which leach into surface and groundwater and can be blown by the winds to contaminate nearby soils. As a result, this area was considered one of the most ecologically blighted in the nation during the 1980s. Fortunately, much of the area has since been remediated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kansas Department of Health and Environment., Cleaning Up the Tri-State Mining District The EPA added Cherokee County to the National Priorities List in 1983, a process that identified over 1,500 open shafts and nearly 500 collapses. Early cleanup efforts centered around Galena because it had some of the worst contamination and 599 identified mine hazards, many of which were in "Hell's Half Acre.” In response, the EPA installed water treatment units for contaminated wells and helped the City of Galena provide safe water for over 500 affected residences and businesses. By 1995, the EPA had removed metal-contaminated soils from residences, filled mine collapses and shafts, gathered surface mine wastes, diverted streams to avoid the waste, and planted sites with native vegetation., Other areas required more dramatic approaches. Numerous residential properties had contaminated soils removed and replaced with clean backfill and vegetation. In 2008, the EPA bought out and relocated about 1,600 residents of Picher, Oklahoma, an area with extreme levels of contamination and ground instability, followed by 100 residents from Treece, Kansas in 2014., Overall, cleanup restored a 25-square-mile portion of the 115-square-mile Cherokee County Superfund site as a wildlife habitat, restoring the natural and reducing human health risks. Native grasses, streams, and wildlife have replaced rock and gravel in many areas, though some evidence of lead and zinc mining can still be found. Some efforts are ongoing, and remediated sites must be monitored. As a result progress will continue into the future.