Remediation of Abandoned Mine Lands

Thursday, October 2, 2008 : 5:20 p.m.

Monitoring of Mine Impacted Soil and Sediment: Relationships and Risk to Aquatic Life

Paul Seidel, David Anderson and Shannon Hubler, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

Ochoco Creek basin is a historic mining watershed in Central Oregon containing a number of historic mercury mines that operated between the 1930s and 1960s. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality  (ODEQ) used the Ochoco basin as a test watershed for a pilot project to develop an investigation framework for evaluation of potential impacts to both abiotic and biotic environmental media on both local and basin-wide spatial scales. Three phases of work were performed between 2005 and 2007.  Phase one used X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology to establish basin-specific reference concentrations for metals; phase two evaluated biological integrity of Ochoco Creek using invertebrate community composition; and phase three evaluated mercury bioaccumulation in fish tissue.  Results indicate that XRF technology data did not differ significantly from fixed analytical laboratory data, and XRF data was deemed suitable for preliminary site assessment and determining site-specific background concentrations.  Bioassessment results indicate that the presence of abandoned mine lands (AMLs) in Ochoco basin did not appreciably impair the biotic community in Ochoco creek relative to a reference basin without AMLs.  Finally, a mercury bioaccumulation model was developed that provides reasonable predictions of average fish-tissue concentrations basin-wide.  Future work will investigate factors that may determine mercury bioaccumulation within specific mining sub-basins.

Paul Seidel, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Paul Seidel is an environmental toxicologist and project manager with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) Northwest Region. Mr. Seidel performs and supports risk-based decision making at cleanup sites including ecological and human health risk assessments. His work includes a variety of issues including sediment investigations, vapor intrusion, bioaccumulative contaminants and abandoned mines.

David Anderson, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality David Anderson is a hydrogeologist and project manager with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) Eastern region. He is the abandoned mines coordinator for DEQs Eastern Region and has worked on projects ranging from former dry cleaners and bulk petroleum facilities to abandoned mines where he has developed expertise with use of X-ray fluorescence technology to characterize mineralized sites.

Shannon Hubler, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Shannon Hubler is an Aquatic Ecologist with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ). Mr. Hubler has performed work assessing biotic integrity of streams throughout Oregon and was the primary developer of ODEQs multivariate statistical model for predicting biotic integrity of small streams, termed the PREDictive Assessment Tool for ORegon, or PREDATOR. He has worked on several mine sites thoughout Oregon.


Remediation of Abandoned Mine Lands