2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
6/06/2017 | 11:30 AM - 11:45 AM | Recovery of streams from acid mine drainage and evaluating toxic metals threshold ranges for community re-assembly | 305B
Recovery of streams from acid mine drainage and evaluating toxic metals threshold ranges for community re-assembly
Leviathan mine is an abandoned open-pit sulfur mining operation in the central Sierra Nevada. From times of uncontrolled runoff of acidic metal-contaminated water through clean-up remediation efforts, streams exposed to acid mine drainage (AMD) in this watershed have been monitored using benthic macroinvertebrates. Over time, as removal of metals load using lime treatment and microbial sulfate reduction has become more complete, the ecological state has been recovered at some sites while others remain impaired relative to reference condition. Years of high flow have resulted in degraded biological status when AMD capture has been incomplete and metals loading had increased with runoff. In addition, there are seasonal patterns of recovery evident in fall after the summer treatment season, followed by relapse in the following spring after overwinter periods when sources are not captured. As the metals load is reduced, recovery progresses through different components of community structure, function, and similarity to reference assemblage taxonomic composition. Community reassembly corresponds to predicted effects of cumulative metals toxicity. This study demonstrates recovery at sites furthest from AMD source areas but shows year-around treatment needed to reestablish biological integrity for stream zones nearest the mine.
- C13 Ecotoxicology
- C19 Causal Assessment
- S03 Stressing the 'Eco' in Freshwater Ecotoxicology
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Presenters/Authors
Dave Herbst
(), Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, University of California Santa Barbara, david.herbst@lifesci.ucsb.edu;
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R. Bruce Medhurst
(), Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, ebbnflow@yahoo.com;
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Ned Black
(), US Environmental Proection Agency, black.ned@epa.gov;
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