Environmental Impacts of the Waste Rump in the Dongjin Gold-Silver-Copper Mine

동진 금·은·동 광산 주변에 방치된 폐석의 환경적 영향

Although the Dongjin Au-Ag-Cu mine had been abandoned since about forty years ago, the results of this study on the dispersion patterns and contamination level of heavy metals in the hydrologic system flowing via the waste rump show that the environmental impacts from the mine wastes are still significant. The stream water in the vicinity of the waste rump is severely acidified (pH 3.8 to 4.4) and highly enriched in various dissolved heavy metals. The heavy metal contents of the stream water and stream sediments are systematically attenuated with increasing distance from the mine area. However, it is worth to note that continuous attenuation of heavy metal contents in both media were reenriched in downstream area more than 800 m apart from the mine because it can be acted as a secondary source of heavy metal pollution. The heavy metals, especially Cd, Cu and Zn of polluted downstream sediments mainly occur in Fe-Mn oxides and organic materials, which indicates that these elements are the main pollutants from the waste rump of the Dongjin mine. The heavy metal contents of crops, such as sesame, perilla, red Pepper and brown rice, collected from the polluted farm land in the downstream area are lower than those of land plants from stream sides, but significantly higher in Cd, Cr, Cu and Zn than those from the unpolluted farm land. Especially, almost all of the crops in polluted farm land have been severly contaminated by Cd (>0.4 ppm). On the other hand, the heavy metal contents of the crops collected from refreshed farm land by means of a soil addition method shows significantly lowered level comparing with those of polluted area, which indicates that a soil addition method was effective for the refreshment of polluted farm land by toxic metallic pollutants. Wormwoods from this area showed very high contents in a11 the heavy metals even in unpolluted area (Cd > 1 ppm, Cr > 1 ppm, Cu > 11 ppm, Pb> 4 ppm, Zn > 55 ppm), indicating that a special caution must be payed when one takes ingest them.