Mine Site Environmental Monitoring

Generally a new mine will not be approved without a detailed environmental monitoring plan, which is would be approved by government authorities with an overall objective being that the environment is not changed in any way as a result of the mining operations. As mines may operate for several years, there would be a need to monitor the different stages.

Firstly there will be the need to monitor environmental parameters before any operations commence to determine a baseline for the local environment. Secondly, when the mine is operating, there will be environmental parameter limits which must not be exceeded during the operations, and these will need to be monitored, and any out of limits conditions recorded. There may be the need to set up alarms based on any out of limits conditions. Finally, when the mining operations have been completed, there is generally the need to rehabilitate the mine site, restore the area to its original condition and habitation, and then monitor for a period of years to make sure there has been no long term change to the environment as a result of the mining operations.

Parameters such as surface water, groundwater, evaporation, and weather are monitored, along with any dust or gas monitors depending on the type of mine.

Application Detail

Firstly, there will be a requirement to monitor the weather in the area using Tier 2 weather station equipment to record the ambient conditions, especially wind speed and direction, so there is good knowledge of the general wind conditions to make sure emissions from mine are not being carried by the wind to areas of population, such as a local town or city. There may be the need for one Tier 2 to be installed at the plant and at each perimeter fence of the facility to get a good reading for the local area.

Unidata supplies various weather station instruments, either a multifunction ultrasonic weather transmitter, which is very convenient to install, as well as separate discrete weather instruments.

For this application, the simpler ultrasonic weather transmitter would most likely be the best choice for the application.
As well as weather, there may be a need to monitor evaporation, especially important in uranium mines. All Unidata’s evaporation systems measure how much water evaporates from a US Class A evaporation pan by measuring the water level in an adjoining still well. The simplest model, known as the 6529-1 Evaporation Monitoring System, comprises of an evaporation pan with a bird and leaf cover and a manual measurement system.

Secondly there may also be a requirement to add additional instruments to measure the presence of noxious gases and dust. There are many manufacturers of gas monitoring equipment. One such manufacturer is Draeger and there are sensors to measure noxious gases such as CO, CO2, NO, H2S, SO2 as well as O2 and N. These instruments typically provide a 4-20mA analog output or a Modbus output which can be read by Neon Remote Terminal or Module routinely, perhaps every minute and then routinely send the data to the Neon Server every 15 minutes.