Simulation of water flow in a tailings pile at the former uranium mine at Le Cellier (Lozère, France)
Tóm tắt
Water flow is an essential aspect in the long-term management of mine tailings. Flow through tailings piles deposited on the surface influence chemical reactions and the migration of pollutants into the environment. This study focuses on one of the tailings piles from the former Le Cellier mining site (Lozère, France) resulting from uranium heap leaching. The site is now decommissioned, and all seepage water is collected and treated before release into the environment, with monitoring on a daily or monthly basis since 1991. From the calculated water balance, it is noted that evapotranspiration corresponds to 45% of the precipitation and affects the hydrological behaviour of the pile in summer and autumn. Auto-correlation analyses suggest that the drain discharges have a low inertia with a memory effect of 2–3 months. The cross-correlations between the rainfall and the drain discharges indicate a quarterly to semiannual pattern, in which the flows react to rainfall and influence the chemical parameters. A hydrodynamic model was developed with the HYDRUS software package, which describes the expected average hydrologic behaviour of the pile according to the monthly observed discharge data (2010–2018). The homogeneous and the stochastic distributions of hydraulic conductivity produced simulations showing that the water distribution in the pile varies seasonally according to the wet and the dry periods. However, the water content (2.9–3.8%) remains low throughout the simulation period, suggesting a possible reactivity of the tailings and that, during rainfall events, leaching and dissolution of residual acid from sulphate-bearing minerals increase.
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