Science of Cooking Project
Communicating Science about the Gold King Mine Spill and Water
Quality in the Animas River
Essential Questions: Ø How have geological, biological and human factors created and exacerbated acid mine drainage and water quality issues in the Animas River?
Ø What ecological and human health threats might be associated with the Gold King Mine spill: initially, currently and in the future?
Ø What actions can be taken to improve the water quality in Cement Creek and the Animas River watershed?
Ø What is the role of science in making policy decisions?
Ø What ecological and human health threats might be associated with the Gold King Mine spill: initially, currently and in the future?
Ø What actions can be taken to improve the water quality in Cement Creek and the Animas River watershed?
Ø What is the role of science in making policy decisions?
The entire point of being a scientist is showing the public what they need to know. If you cannot share your data, then you yourself cannot understand your data. You need to communicate it in order to be able to say you know it. My understanding of scientific knowledge has changed as I look at what the actual researchers do. I had not understood how much they had to write and I do not really want to have to deal with that anymore. I had understood that science was having fun and writing it down, but the writing part takes a little bit too long for me.
The human factors have really affected the way that the acid mine drainage has been created. This is evident because of the way that the mines were actually created by humans. However, because of the way that the water percolates through the mountains, the mines are filling. This in turn combines the water with pyrite and the oxygen to create sulfuric acid. Then the sulfuric acid dissolves the heavy metals and when provided with a exit, such as a whole in the bulkhead, then flow down to the nearest river. We should be finding a solution, and it seems that we are finally looking into getting a superfund to fix the entire problem.
I believe that there are several solutions that could be made to fix water quality. I think that the easiest would be to simply bulkhead all the mines. However, this would create multiple timebombs that would be ready to explode down to the river. The second option would be to build a big filtration plant that would continually filter the water as it came out naturally. This would be very expensive and would be a never ending problem, because the mines are not going to stop leaking AMD. The third and best option in my opinion, would be to coat the inside of the mines feeding the rivers with covercrete. This would be expensive, but it would never break and no more money would be needed to put into the solution. This would trap the water inside the mountain and it would find natural fissures rather than the mines to leave the mountain. I believe that this is the best solution. There may be others, but I have not done sufficient research to explain them.
The human factors have really affected the way that the acid mine drainage has been created. This is evident because of the way that the mines were actually created by humans. However, because of the way that the water percolates through the mountains, the mines are filling. This in turn combines the water with pyrite and the oxygen to create sulfuric acid. Then the sulfuric acid dissolves the heavy metals and when provided with a exit, such as a whole in the bulkhead, then flow down to the nearest river. We should be finding a solution, and it seems that we are finally looking into getting a superfund to fix the entire problem.
I believe that there are several solutions that could be made to fix water quality. I think that the easiest would be to simply bulkhead all the mines. However, this would create multiple timebombs that would be ready to explode down to the river. The second option would be to build a big filtration plant that would continually filter the water as it came out naturally. This would be very expensive and would be a never ending problem, because the mines are not going to stop leaking AMD. The third and best option in my opinion, would be to coat the inside of the mines feeding the rivers with covercrete. This would be expensive, but it would never break and no more money would be needed to put into the solution. This would trap the water inside the mountain and it would find natural fissures rather than the mines to leave the mountain. I believe that this is the best solution. There may be others, but I have not done sufficient research to explain them.