Mining and the Water Environment

It is difficult to over-state the importance of mining to the development and sustenance of modern society (Shepherd, 1993). The appropriation of natural earth resources for human use is apparently instinctive, and operates at every level of social organisation: from the hunter-gatherer constructing a temporary shelter with loose boulders, to an international corporation extracting and processing many tonnes of host rock to obtain a few grams of precious metal. The extraction and processing of minerals is a prerequisite for the lifestyle of all advanced societies, to the extent that a blanket opposition to all mining is a difficult position for even the most dedicated of anti-mining pressure groups to sustain1. The all-pervading influence of mining on contemporary urban life is readily appreciated by the simple exercise of examining your surroundings and reflecting on the origins of the various materials you see. Above are the results of undertaking this exercise in the author’s study.