Mining operates under a social license, but its benefits should outweigh its negative impacts. Responsible mine operators accept this and they design their operations to be socially responsible. However to protect the environment and society against the negative impacts of mining regulatory frameworks are put in place to guide the assessment of mining proposals before mining commences. This framework set out how judgement of the benefit to negative impacts should be carried out, so that they are transparent, justifiable and based on best knowledge. There are broad range of environmental and social impacts which must be considered in the assessment of any mining proposal. The environmental factors include:
- Impacts on air quality – dust fumes gas emissions etc.
- Impacts on habitat including temporary loss of or reduction in the sustainable plant and animal biodiversity through land destruction.
- Or possible permanent loss of or future changes in habitat and biodiversity (post mining)
- Impacts on aquatic habitat and ecosystems through depletion, contamination or even total destruction or relocation of water waste and broader scale impacts, due to the temporary or permanent changes in the ground bud erosion.
There are also social and societal issues to consider including;
- effects of water and the results during and after mining
- effects on air quality
- Noise and vibration impact
- Visual impact
- Impacts on existing public infrastructure and utilities that mine general activities
- impacts on demographics and lifestyle
- Impacts on existing industries
- Impacts on or loss of cultural heritage
- impacts on loss of natural heritage and
- Temporary or permanent loss of land to other uses, and exposure to undesirable mining derived substances.
Environmental impact assessments are made by experts including, environmental engineers, environmental scientists, regional planners, sociologists, and even archeologists who make assessment to propose mining activities on the basis of scientific knowledge, scientific models and a broad knowledge based on past experience. Ideally, these assessments should be undertaken by independent consultants and then considered by regulators who evaluate the balance between the benefits of mining and the negative impacts. There are many steps in the approval process or a mining operation, for example; approval to undertake mineral exploration is awarded by regulators through licenses by a process of open competition.
Every activity during exploration needs to be planned and approved by government regulators, even exploration can have serious environmental impacts which is even more unacceptable in the event that mining doesn’t follow. After exploration the mine will undertake an economic evaluation and if the project is viable, they will then proceed to project planning. During this planning stage the proponent will liaise with many government agencies involved in the project approval to ensure that they deliver the types of information required by the agency. Once the project design is complete, it would be submitted to the government for assessment this is via a report commonly called a review of environmental factors or an environmental impact statement.
If the regulators find the assessment to be inadequate, then more studies may be required on specific aspects. Impacts statements are typically put out for public comments before any mining activity is granted. If the mining impacts are deemed to be acceptable and justified by the greater public goon then the mining proposal will be approved. However, there will usually be general conditions placed on this approval in regard to the way the mine must be operated, interactions with local land owners and what clean-up is required during and after mine closure. Commonly, approval conditions include requirements to establish committees between local operators and mine operators to address any ongoing issues related to mine operation, such as noise and dust that might impact the local community.
Other conditions may require progressive rehabilitation of the mine sites, acquisition of offset lands that are to be preserved in their natural condition to compensate for the land loss to mining, contributions to communities and local government to compensate for the impacts on local towns, acquisition of impacted land from local land owners and adherence to specific upper limits for air, water, noise, and visual pollution. There are usually compelling economic arguments to perceive with the exploitation of a mineral deposit. But increasingly, it’s becoming more difficult for these to proceed without significant impacts on local communities and the environment. Good science and good engineering are now more so than ever needed to underpin sound rational decisions.