BBC again :smartass:
Interesting pictures
Water contaminated with metals and chemicals still sits in dozens of disused mines across England, Scotland and Wales. But how do you ensure those millions of litres are kept out of rivers and streams?

A twisting array of pipes emerges Hydra-like from the depths of the disused Wheal Jane mine, near Truro in Cornwall.

Contaminated water, laden with iron, zinc, cadmium and arsenic, is pumped out of the mine at the rate of at least 110 litres a second out of a maximum of nine pumps, depending on the rainfall at the time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26573994 

It's a testament to their excellent choice of equipment that all these pumps seem not to have dissolved yet... 😎

It would have been cheaper all round to have kept the mine operating .... :guns:

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Jane's water is pretty much fine to flow out of a normal adit.

The problem is with ownership of the adit and responsibility for it, before doing anything. If they turn the pumps off, everything from Ting Tang to Wheal Buttery will flood and then burst out of the collapsed and not-properly watertight area near nangiles, by the stream, as we saw back in the day.

It's a matter for lawyers pointing at small print and continued pumping.

Taken from bbc site
"A drainage tunnel, or adit, near the surface had collapsed and more than £45m litres of acidic mine water poured into the Carnon River and the Fal Estuary"
never seen water measures in £ before lol

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Maybe what they call a 'Freudian slip'

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Probably predictive text, when the BBC mention 'xx'million, it usually has a £ sign in front of it!:glare:

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Probably predictive text, when the BBC mention 'xx'million, it usually has a £ sign in front of it!:glare:

Text speak on the BBC!
Where will it all end?

If they're pumping money they can use my house as a storage tank :lol:

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A drainage tunnel, or adit, near the surface had collapsed and more than £45m litres of acidic mine water poured into the Carnon River and the Fal Estuary.

I thought what had happened was that the united>consols adit had collapsed meaning the water from the whole United mines was draining through wellington...whose own adit had collapsed meaning that the water had to pass into nangiles, where the 3 adits which formerly drained it were either blocked with falls, or with concrete plugs. This meant that the water had no escape, apart from down Wheal Jane deep adit, which has a dam in it, is blocked in at least one place and to boot, is fitted with bloody great valves which are turned off. This means the water of all the Janes, Wheal Baddon and Basset Graze United are backed up to the stoping in Wheal Jane......

You can clearly see where this is going.

If you stop pumping, the whole bloody lot fills up with water until there is a fair degree of pressure behind everything. I think the lowest point is the collar of Bread and Cheese shaft which is about 25ft above the water level (at rest). So, all it takes is a bit of a blockage failing and the whole bloody lot (square miles of mines) all backed up a height above workings which are filled with orange gunge (as they all do in that area) decants into the river.

They have got themselves a problem. Rather than letting the adit flow and the increased flow of the adit in rainy times match the increased flow of the county adit and the carnon river, they decided to muck about with it. The result is that when they decided to turn the pumps off for a bit, the disaster happened.

If they turn the pumps off again, it will happen again. My bet on the blow out point being by the old open gunnis on B lode in nangiles. This is stoped below and the whole things is the weak point.

They have got the run of ground from Carn Marth right the way through to Wheal Buttery which is about 2 miles away draining up No2 shaft. No wonder they struggle to pump it when it rains a bit. No wonder it's so bloody expensive.

It's one of those things which needs a public enquiry. What is going on behind the scenes regarding who is responsible for the condition of the Jane adit? I know that the people who occupy the site have held their hands up and said "We're nothing to do with it".

There are 2 options.

Carry on pumping and wasting millions on pumping water which is pretty damn innocuous. It's pH 2.6 last time I looked. It's not what it was back in the day. The metal loading isn't that much either, in the grand dilution scheme of things.

or, they take responsibility, show a bit of poise, find out who is responsible for the condition of the adit (read the bloody contract) and make them pay to sort it out and then allow it to flow.

Carrying on like this in this financial climate is totally unacceptable.

The whole situation at Jane and the surrounding mines is an unsustainable and expensive way of averting another crisis which would have been totally avoidable if people had done their jobs from scratch.

However, I'm sure the EA will take itself to court and win/lose and lessons will be learned.

Can anyone link to the actual cost of the Jane water scheme.

Also, can anyone suggest what will happen if the suspected weak bit in the bed of the carnon stream fails and the stream (sometimes quite a flow) pours into stoping? Have they got a contingency plan, or will it merely be people shrugging and saying "Nothing to do with me Guv?"

The Coal authority and EA, haven't exactly been candid there. For two years running now, their pumps have had to be backed up with pumps from Cornwall Fire Brigade, Devon & Somerset (Of course its not good to mention your pumps are pumping an abandoned mine in cornwall while half of somersets homes are underwater!), London Fire brigade and the Coal Authority. The worst of it this year is a lot of the time the pumps weren't even in use as they couldn't agree who was going to pay for the maintenance of the pumps after!

They are riding their luck bg style

If there is a major pumping failure, there will be a repeat of orange-fal.

They reckon they were within 12 hours of it this year

I don't know about that. The water was still a way down. If you use the water in Welly Shaft and Nangiles as a barometer, it doesn't vary that much.

Looking at Nangiles here:-



It appears that the water prior to the blow out was backed up about 6ft above No1 Level (which there is about 8ft above Jane's adit level). If you look down the engine shaft now, water at rest is about 6ft down. It probably drops another 2ft maximum. I have never seen any water levels in any of the shafts rise much above what they were. I've seen the adit level in welly very wet due to water accumulation, but never the water in the shaft rise.

If they did have a catastrophic pump failure, the Jane adit is very secure. All the shafts on it and all the stopes connected are effectively a resevoir. They've got about 8ft or so of elbow room before Nangiles level starts to flood. This itself amounts to a huge run of stoping. The Coffin levels in West Jane would effectively become huge lakes, there is another run of massive flat stoping through Wheal Widden, when the water rises to the Nangiles adit level, you have that massive tunnel which can fill, and then all the workings on the copper lode, as well as a pretty damn extensive adit system. When you consider the welly side, Wheal Andrew as well as all the stoping (very extensive above adit on the old old plans) it runs into probably 6 figures of cubic meters of space!

It would take a fair old time to fill up. You'd have percolation right over to Ting Tang.

At the moment, with things being adit level, or there abouts New Jane side, they've got about 8ft of headroom before they get to the point immediately after the blowout happened. Things were allowed to fill up about another 6ft above that (looking at the levels on the walls in Nangiles). So, they are 12ft below the point at which it was backed up to.

So, we have to ask ourselves the question, did they sort the blockage in Nangiles which blew out after, meaning they have 12ft of headroom? (Probably not).

If they were to switch the pumps off, I imagine the water would rise in Old Jane and New Jane flooding the deep adit system completely (and ruining several precious habitats) big lakes would form in the West Jane Stoping and the water would rise in Nangiles, completely flooding the copper workings beyond Tregonning's shaft.

Then the water would rise to the adit level in Nangiles (which is approx the same as that in wellington according to the section) and flood to the point that the breach happened last time, or one of the blockages would eventually give way.

When you consider the sheer amount of water in there (+6ft in the whole run of mines) it is a mind boggling amount.

I'm not sure that the adit politics at Jane will be resolved, so a sensible person would suggest that the water was allowed to exit via a refurbished system at Welly.

I wonder how they arrived at the 12 hour figure and I wonder how well the people who are in charge of this water business understand the situation. Of course, they will be experts, the consulting geologist will have probably doctoral experience in modelling mine-water rebounds and prior to the disaster, they will still have the data which can inform the likely progression of rebound with the rainfall. They will have confidence intervals, operating parameters and backup insurance measures.

It would be hugely cynical to say there was some hillbilly called Dave who says "fukin ell, the waters come right up, get someone with a bloody fire engine!!"

It might be an idea that this ambles a bit further towards the "what are we going to do afterwards" stage of thinking....which, behind the scenes, they are doing.

At the present time, it doesn't really matter where the water goes, via pipes or through adits, the bottom line is that the quality of the water is not sufficiently clean to discharge into the Carnon river without treatment, hence the big expensive treatment works on the surface. Unfortunately the colour of the water is no method of telling how polluted the water is. Its all the disolved metals and there are plenty of them.

Before the law changed, after which the mining company would have been required to pay for the treatment of the water it was easy to walk away which happened. As the closure of the mine was before the change in the law, the EA and the taxpayer has to pay for the clean up. Its the same elsewhere in the UK as no doubt we will be informed by our correspondents 'up country'.

As was said at the time and several times since, considering all the costs that have been involved in the creation of the treatment works and the cost of treatment etc, consultants et al, it would have been cheaper to have kept the mine running, and sorted the water issues underground.

In addition, the treatment has turned parts of the river alkaline, rather than acid as the EA were told. The EA could not give an answer to this ...

Bottom line, keep our mines operating and there won't be all this post clousre issues ....

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In the role of a correspondent from 'up country', is it time to alter the definition of a mine to a hole in the ground into which you pour public money? Anyone care to speculate on overall costs to the public purse (i.e. us) of the revival of mining in Cornwall since the '60s? Are we in profit or in loss? Maybe another thread.... How much per tonne, on a 'total cost' basis?

is it time to alter the definition of a mine to a hole in the ground into which you pour public money?

On this basis, I am considering reclassifying my wallet as a mine with significant heavy metal pollution...

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Things.....

When I was working at an "independent laboratory" (independent from the company dealing with the water treatment). The water was one of the things tested. I wish I had paid closer attention to the actual figures. I remember 2 things. The water was pH 2.6 and the Cd was more like 3ppb rather than the 600 that everyone was weeing themselves over.

Let's export the pollution to China instead!

In the role of a correspondent from 'up country', is it time to alter the definition of a mine to a hole in the ground into which you pour public money? Anyone care to speculate on overall costs to the public purse (i.e. us) of the revival of mining in Cornwall since the '60s? Are we in profit or in loss? Maybe another thread.... How much per tonne, on a 'total cost' basis?

I think it would be more than just academic interest to actual work out how much say the water treatment and other post closure costs have been since a mine was abandoned against the cost of keeping them open, even if some run at a small (no definition, I'll throw that one to the wolves) deficit. I would like to think that in the case of WJ, the cost of treatment and other post closure costs such as the loss of jobs, etc etc has outweighed the cost of keeping the mine operating and providing work etc. I know there are many who would be against keeping our industry (mining) going, and would rather we bought all the materials (once mined here) from some place else, where we can be held to ransom if the situation arises.

Fire away ....;D

As regards water treatment, its not just the Cd thats the problem, disolved metals such as Mn, Cu, Zn, Ca, Fe etc are all even in the case of a mine in the Camborne district in excess of what the law requires. I'm sure that the ph of the water discharge from WJ was far too acid, hence the huge Lime silos that went up...

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I always wondered whether Maggie shutting the coal mines down (having also been pushed around by the oil sheiks) was clever resource planning. Import everything whilst keeping your stash fine....rather like the Americans appear to do with a lot of things.

I think Britain's future is a tourist island off coast of the United States of Europe, (led by Emperor Blair). People can see all sorts of attractions of what it was like when people worked in GB, all these attractions will have the glorious flag on them, so we know who paid for it all.

I gather Jane's reserves were proven down to the 25 level and although they finished at the 15, the last major level was the 13. That's a fair bit left. Whilst everyone is quick to say how wet Jane was, it was because they were largely pumping out the whole of Gwennap. We know the decline was largely pointless, but there would have been other targets to go for, particulary under Sperries and Basset Graze. They could have got really ambitious and done a 20 level crosscut to somewhere like Peevor!!!

Even though Clemows and No2 are protected shafts on the superduper schedule (surrounding exclusion zone of the larger amount), the glorious crowd leading the wretched remains of Crofty PLC have decided that the tailings dam is a good idea to dump hardcore/earth in. It is making them a fortune, but will pose a total obstacle to when they do want to look at it again, say in 40 years time.

Looking at somewhere like Hemerdon (and as a Cornishman, feel free to shoot me - as a libertarian, perhaps I should shoot myself) I wonder if the actual exercise is really worth it. You take a huge deposit, a company comes in with millions of pounds of investment fund money, whacks up a load of automatic machinery, digs a hole with lots of automatic machinery, pays some dues to the mineral lord and then leaves a fercking mess.

"It will provide loads of jobs, which the area is aching for"

Really? Sales of grease and overalls may go up a bit, but it's not going to be the big employer that prior operations were, nor is Francis Basset likely to come along and build a school for the local rats.

The profits will probably go on advisors in luxembourg whilst the remainder will be spent on the cost of using the logo of the international company through a bagatelle of trusts, shell companies and avoidance schemes. No doubt the planning office are also counting the contents of their envelopes.

As much as it pains me to say it, common sense doesn't exist. The country does not need to obey any sort of economic rules. We can go on selling each other houses at ever increasing prices and base the economy on that instead. We can build even more houses and sell them to each other at ever increasing prices, whilst allowing China to do all the nasty hard work.

Getting Britain back to Growth. Make sure you vote Conservative in 2015. (The only party which will give you an EU referendum)

Regarding the water, I'm sure the coast did perfectly fine in the 19th century when Gwennap/Scorrier were pumping that amount of nasty water into the Fal every day. I'm sure it was in the West Britain, referenced by DB Barton in Life in Cornwall where the oyster beds failed up the line and everyone and their dog was out stripping the oysters. It suggested that they were in fine health, despite the county adit spewing loads of filth.

As a part of my undergrad degree, I did study the history of pollution legislation (to 2000) and apart from being rather boring and using lots of acronyms, it gave no real reference to where they had got their figures from. The clean air stuff seemed to make sense, particularly the stuff about gas scrubbers, but a lot of the effluent "stuff" (excluding the stuff about biological and chemical oxygen demand) didn't seem to make as much sense as it could have done.

Surely, it's a bad idea to release an atom of anything but sadly, if you want a country which has nice things, you have to. We know that shellfish absorb stuff, but it's not like it's going to kill you. People are probably more likely to die through big macs and fags than eating metal laden fish. So what if the odd swan goes green?