SurfaceMining in the Southeastern Saskatchewan Region

At present, the local rescue primarily consists of cattle ranching, with the return of cereal crops in vapidlying areas. The exploit consortium maintains that it go away create 250 invigorated jobs for the region's local people.

Opponents of tuition insist that stripdigging will irreparably damage range and agricultural land, and eventually put up useless tracts of badlands. In addition, they are concerned about tap drainage. Surface body of piddle from two main river channels and foundation water from shallow aquifers are widely utilized for irrigation, descent purposes, and domestic use. Local people fear that acid water runoff from the mines will pollute these water resources.

The archeological site consortium, however, claims that the potential for their damaging the land is greatly exaggerated. They move over nevertheless to address the water pollution issue though.

Coal production is a complex, heavy industry which can have a significant impact on the environment. Of the assorted mining techniques, whitethornhap "stripmining" is the most controversial. There are terce different types of surfacemines; these include contour, mountaintop removal, and area mining. The three differ according to such factors as operation size, the equipment used, and spoil use (NRC, 1990, p. 60). All three forms of surfacemining involve the phases of premining exploration, active mining, and postmining reclamation. Each of these activitie

Yet another effect that surfacemining can have on water resources involves ground water availability. Largescale mining operations in westerly coal basins haps over considerable areas and may last for as long as a decade or more. This development can potentially produce significant regional lumbering of watertables. A deep surface mine may cause ground water to recede by as a good deal as 200 to 300 feet. Moreover, this environmental limiting may occur at distances as great as 3 or 4 miles from the cut. Finally, in some instances, these changes may persist even after mining operations have been completed.

Longterm alteration of ground water infiltration and recharge characteristics, can potentially result from permanent changes in hydrogeologic structure (NRC, 1981, p. 145).

In contrast, States in the western part of the region tend to be more contacted by table salt and alkalinity capers. Moreover, the water quality problems of the West are generally much less severe than those of the East. Problems which do occur though, usually affect shallow aquifers the most. Water quality degradation may occur in the form of dissolved solids and increased concentrations of sulfate, calcium, and magnesium. In addition, levels of various trace metals including lead, manganese, nickel, chromium, cadmium, zinc, arsenic, and selenium, may also be elevated (NRC, 1990, p. 77).

An spare reclamation concern relates to the quality of the water in recharged aquifers. In certain areas of the East, disaggregated burden materials have contaminated ground water. This problem can be largely avoided, however, by means of isolation techniques. Furthermore, although the overburden in northern North Dakota tends to be geochemically complex, it is not physiologically toxic (Dollhopf, 1983, p. 593). Western problems of salinity and alkalinity may be handled through selective spoils handling methods. Perching such materials above watertables should treasure water supplies
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