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South Australia's and the US's in situ leaching legislation

  • Health and safety
  • Land-use planning
  • Permitting processes / policy integration
  • Reporting official statistics
  • Socio-economic and environmental impact assessments

Challenge the practice is addressing: As in situ leaching (ISL) does not yet exist in Europe, South Australia's and the US's legislation provides good practices that could be introduced to Europe.

Concrete practice to achieve the expected goal: South Australia: Best practices of ISL include characterising the groundwater flow and composition for baseline information, addressing radiation protection, managing liquid residues because of the associated radioactivity and elevated salt concentrations as well as monitoring to ensure early identification of excursions of mining solutions and liquid residues. US: The revision of the applicable regulation (EPA 2014) will be to characterise the baseline groundwater chemistry, meet restoration goals for 13 groundwater constituents and monitor the groundwater during operation and for 30 years after demonstrating that restoration has been achieved and the system is stable.

Expected impact/goal of the practice: Introducing good practices elsewhere is anticipated to encourage policy makers to see the benefits of ISL and integrate it into existing legislation.

Who is the target user group of the practice/intervention or implementing the practice/intervention? Policy makers

Hyperlink
Source
BIOMOre Deliverable Number 5.3: Review of legislation and BREF documents for the environmentally safe exploitation of stimulated in situ bioleaching (p. 32-37)
Year
2016
Data item type
Knowledge base
Practice type
Public policy
Format
Report / document
Learning relevance
Guidelines / guidance document
Commodity
Metalliferous minerals
Extractive life-cycle
Exploitation phase
Sustainability scope
Water stewardship
Land-use and biodiversity
Waste management