During the extraction and processing of minerals, a large-scale human impact on the natural environment occurs. The resulting environmental problems associated with the extraction of minerals require a comprehensive study and immediate solution.

What characterizes the extractive industry?

The extractive industry is widely developed in the Russian Federation, because deposits of the main types of minerals are located on the territory of the country. These accumulations of mineral and organic formations located in the bowels of the earth are effectively used, ensuring the life of people and production.

All minerals can be divided into three groups:

• solid subdivided into: coal, ores, non-metallic materials, etc.;
• liquid, the main representatives of this category are: fresh, mineral water and oil;
• gaseous which include natural gas.

Depending on the purpose, the following types of minerals are mined:

• ore materials(iron, manganese, copper, nickel ores, bauxites, chromites and precious metals);
• building materials(limestone, dolomite, clay, sand, marble, granite);
• non-metallic resources(jasper, agate, garnet, corundum, diamonds, rock crystal);
• mining and chemical raw materials(apatites, phosphorites, table and potassium salt, sulfur, barite, bromine- and iodine-containing solutions;
• fuel and energy materials(oil, gas, coal, peat, oil shale, uranium ores);
• hydromineral raw materials(underground fresh and mineralized waters);
• ocean mineral formations(ore-bearing veins, layers of the continental shelf and ferromanganese inclusions);
• mineral resources of sea water.

The Russian extractive industry accounts for a quarter of the world's gas production, 17% of the world's oil, 15% of coal, and 14% of iron ore.

Mining industry enterprises have become the largest sources of environmental pollution. Substances that are emitted by the mining complex have a detrimental effect on the ecosystem. The problems of the negative impact of the mining and processing industries are very acute, as they affect all spheres of life.

How does the industry affect the earth's surface, air, water, flora and fauna?

The scale of development of the extractive industry is amazing: when recalculating the volume of extraction of raw materials per inhabitant of the planet, approximately 20 tons of resources will be obtained. But only a tenth of this amount falls on the final products, and the rest is waste. The development of the mining complex inevitably leads to negative consequences, the main of which are:

• depletion of raw materials;
• environmental pollution;
• disruption of natural processes.

All this leads to serious environmental problems. You can look at individual examples of how different types of extractive industries affect the environment.

At mercury deposits, the landscape is disturbed, dumps are formed. At the same time, mercury is dispersed, which is a toxic substance that has a detrimental effect on all living things. A similar problem arises in the development of antimony deposits. As a result of the work, there are accumulations of heavy metals that pollute the atmosphere.

When mining gold, technologies are used to separate the precious metal from mineral impurities, accompanied by the release of toxic components into the atmosphere. On the dumps of uranium ore deposits, the presence of radioactive radiation is observed.

Why is coal mining dangerous?

• deformation of the surface and coal-bearing seams;
• pollution of air, water and soil in the area of ​​the quarry;
• release of gas and dust during the removal of waste rocks to the surface;
• shallowing and disappearance of rivers;
• flooding of abandoned quarries;
• the formation of depression funnels;
• dehydration, salinization of the soil layer.

On the territory located near the mine, anthropogenic forms (ravines, quarries, waste heaps, dumps) are created from raw material waste, which can stretch for tens of kilometers. Neither trees nor other plants can grow on them. And the water flowing from the dumps with toxic substances harms all living things in large adjacent areas.

In the deposits of rock salt, halite waste is formed, which is carried by precipitation to reservoirs that serve to supply the inhabitants of nearby settlements with drinking water. Near the development of magnesites, there is a change in the acid-base balance of the soil, leading to the death of vegetation. A change in the chemical composition of the soil leads to plant mutations - a change in color, ugliness, etc.

There is also pollution of agricultural land. When transporting minerals, dust can fly over long distances and settle on the soil.

Over time, the earth's crust is depleted, stocks of raw materials decrease, and the content of minerals decreases. As a result, production volumes and the amount of waste are increasing. One of the ways out of this situation is the creation of artificial analogues of natural materials.

Protection of the lithosphere

One of the methods to protect the earth's surface from the harmful effects of mining enterprises is land reclamation. It is possible to partially solve the environmental problem by filling the formed recesses with waste from the developments.

Since many rocks contain more than one type of minerals, it is necessary to optimize technologies by extracting and processing all the components present in the ore. Such an approach will not only have a positive impact on the state of the environment, but will also bring considerable economic benefits.

How to save the environment?

At the present stage of development of industrial technologies, it is necessary to provide for environmental protection measures. The priority is the creation of low-waste or waste-free industries that can significantly reduce the detrimental impact on the environment.

Actions to help solve the problem

When solving the problem of environmental protection, it is important to use complex measures: production, economic, scientific and technical, social.

You can improve the environment by:

• more complete extraction of fossils from the bowels;
• the use of associated petroleum gas by industry;
• integrated use of all rock components;
• measures for water treatment in underground mining;
• application of mine wastewater for technical purposes;
• use of waste in other industries.

During the extraction and processing of mineral resources, it is necessary to use modern technologies to reduce emissions of harmful substances. Despite the cost of applying advanced developments, investments are justified by improving the environmental situation.

The overall economic burden on ecological systems is simplistically dependent on three factors: the size of the population, the average level of consumption and the widespread use of various technologies. The degree of damage caused to the environment by the consumer society can be reduced by changing agricultural models, transportation systems, urban planning methods, energy consumption intensity, reviewing existing industrial technologies, etc.

The extraction of minerals from the bowels of the Earth affects all its spheres . Impact of mining on the lithosphere appears in the following:

1) creation of anthropogenic landforms: quarries, dumps (up to 100-150 m high), waste heaps, etc. Terrikon- cone-shaped tailings dump. The volume of the waste heap reaches several tens of millions of m 8 , the height is 100 m and more, the development area is tens of hectares. Dump- an embankment formed as a result of the placement of overburden in specially designated areas. As a result of open mining, quarries are formed with a depth of more than 500 m;

2) activation of geological processes (karst, landslides, talus, subsidence and displacement of rocks). In underground mining, subsidence and dips are formed. In Kuzbass, a chain of sinkholes (up to 30 m deep) stretches for more than 50 km;

4) mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution.

In the world, the total area of ​​lands disturbed by mining operations exceeds 6 million hectares. To these lands should be added agricultural and forest lands, which are negatively affected by mining. Within a radius of 35-40 km from the existing quarry, crop yields are reduced by 30% compared to the average level.

The upper layers of the lithosphere within the territory of Belarus are experiencing intense impact as a result of engineering and geological research and exploration work on various types of minerals. It should be noted that only from the beginning of the 50s of the XX century. about 1,400 exploration and production wells for oil (up to 2.5-5.2 km deep), more than 900 wells for rock and potash salts (600-1,500 m deep), more than 1,000 wells for geological objects of special aesthetic and recreational value were drilled .

Conducting seismic studies using drilling and blasting operations, the density of which is especially high within the Pripyat trough, causes a violation of the physical and chemical properties of the soil, pollution of groundwater.

Mining affects the state of the atmosphere:

1) air pollution occurs with emissions of methane, sulfur, carbon oxides from mine workings, as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps (release of oxides of nitrogen, carbon, sulfur), gas and oil fires.

More than 70% of waste heaps in Kuzbass and 85% of dumps in Donbass are on fire. At a distance of up to several kilometers from them, the concentrations of S0 2 , CO 2 , and CO are significantly increased in the air.

In the 80s. 20th century in the Ruhr and Upper Silesian basins, 2-5 kg ​​of dust fell daily for every 100 km 2 of area. Due to the dustiness of the atmosphere, the intensity of sunshine in Germany decreased by 20%, in Poland - by 50%. The soil in the fields adjacent to quarries and mines is buried under a layer of dust up to 0.5 m thick and loses its fertility for many years.

Impact of mining on the hydrosphere manifests itself in the depletion of aquifers and in the deterioration of the quality of ground and surface waters. As a result, springs, streams, and many small rivers disappear.

The extraction process itself can be improved through the use of chemical and biological methods. This is underground leaching of ores, the use of microorganisms.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to radioactive contamination a significant part of the country's mineral resources that are in the zone of its negative impact. According to research data, 132 deposits of mineral resources, including 59 being developed, turned out to be in the zone of radioactive contamination. These are mainly deposits of clay, sand and sand and gravel mixtures, cement and lime raw materials, building and facing stone. The Pripyat oil and gas basin and the Zhitkovichi deposit of brown coal and oil shale also fell into the pollution zone.

Currently, about 20 tons of raw materials are mined annually for every inhabitant of the Earth. Of these, a few percent goes into the final product, and the rest of the mass turns into waste. Most mineral deposits are complex and contain several components that are economically viable to extract. In oil fields, associated components are gas, sulfur, iodine, bromine, boron, in gas fields - sulfur, nitrogen, helium. Deposits of potash salts usually contain sylvin and halite. Currently, there is a constant and rather significant decrease in the amount of metals in mined ores. The amount of iron in mined ores is reduced by an average of 1% (absolute) per year. Therefore, to obtain the same amount of non-ferrous and ferrous metals in 20-25 years, it will be necessary to more than double the amount of mined and processed ore.

Similar information.

In the process of mining and processing of minerals, a person affects a large geological cycle. Man converts mineral deposits into other forms of chemical compounds. For example, a person gradually exhausts combustible minerals (oil, coal, gas, peat) and eventually converts them into carbon dioxide and carbonates. Secondly, a person distributes over the surface of the earth, dispersing, as a rule, former geological accumulations.

At present, about 20 tons of raw materials are extracted annually for each inhabitant of the Earth, of which a few percent go into the final product, and the rest of the mass turns into waste.

Most mineral deposits are complex and contain several components that are economically viable to extract. In oil fields, associated components are gas, sulfur, iodine, bromine, boron, in gas fields - sulfur, nitrogen, helium. Currently, there is a constant and rather significant decrease in the content of metals in mined ores. Obviously, in 20–25 years, to obtain the same amount of non-ferrous and ferrous metals, it will be necessary to more than double the amount of mined and processed ore.

Mining affects all spheres of the Earth. The impact of mining on the lithosphere is manifested in the following:

1. Creation of anthropogenic forms of mesorelief: quarries, dumps (up to 100-150 m high), waste heaps (up to 300 m high), etc. On the territory of Donbass there are more than 2,000 waste rock dumps with a height of about 50–80 m. As a result of open mining, quarries with a depth of more than 500 m are formed.

2. Activation of geological processes (karst, landslides, talus, subsidence and displacement of rocks). During underground mining, subsidence troughs and dips are formed. In Kuzbass, a chain of sinkholes (up to 30 m deep) stretches for more than 50 km.

3. Change in physical fields, especially in permafrost regions.

4. Mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution. Within a radius of 35 - 40 km from the existing quarry, crop yields are reduced by 30% compared to the average level.

Mining affects the state of the atmosphere:

1. Air pollution occurs with emissions of CH 4 , sulfur, carbon oxides from mine workings, as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps (release of N, C, S oxides), gas and oil fires.

2. The dust content of the atmosphere increases as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps, during explosions in quarries, which affects the amount of solar radiation and temperature, and the amount of precipitation.

The impact of mining on the hydrosphere is manifested in the depletion of aquifers and in the deterioration of the quality of ground and surface waters.

Comprehensive measures for the rational use of minerals and protection of subsoil include the following:

1. Ensuring the completeness of the extraction of minerals during mining:

a) improving the quality of exploration work;

b) expansion of open pit mining;

c) introduction of mining systems with goaf backfilling;

d) separate extraction of minerals and rocks;

e) re-development of sites and deposits;

f) development and use of special methods and measures to reduce losses. For example, increasing the recovery of oil reservoirs is carried out by various methods: physicochemical, thermal, waterflooding. With the help of steam-thermal impact on the reservoirs, the oil yield exceeds 40%. Enhanced oil recovery lengthens the exploitation of fields.

2. Ensuring the completeness of the extraction of minerals during processing:

a) increasing the degree of extraction of minerals by improving the technology of processing. Such technologies include underground leaching, microbiological, physicochemical, hydrometallic and combined methods.

b) use of pre-enrichment methods;

c) processing of dumps and waste;

d) additional extraction of useful components;

e) purification of mine and waste water;

f) development of economic incentives for a more complete recovery from enrichment.

3. Rational use of mined mineral raw materials and products of its processing in the national economy:

a) saving resources is one of the ways of rational use. Each percentage of saving fuel and energy resources is 2-3 times more profitable than increasing the production of a rolled product resource by strengthening it, applying coatings that protect against corrosion

b) recycling of products of processing of mineral raw materials. A large reserve in the use of secondary resources is the recycling of scrap metal;

c) maximum reduction of losses during the transportation of mineral raw materials, coal, etc.

The set of measures to radically improve the use of energy resources includes three main aspects:

ü reduction of energy consumption to meet energy needs;

ü increasing the range of use of energy resources by improving the technology of extraction, processing, distribution and use of fuel and energy resources;

replacement of expensive and limited types of energy resources with cheaper energy sources.

6 Mineral resources of Belarus, their use and problems of protection of natural complexes in the development of minerals. In the bowels of B. more than 30 types of mines. raw materials. According to the degree of readiness for use vyd. field: 1. With detailed explored reserves of the miner. Raw materials 2. Not yet prepared for industrial development, 3. Promising areas. Fuel resources .Oil. According to comp. in 2008, 71 deposits were discovered in Belarus, 68 in the Gomel region. and and 3 in Mogilevskaya. Developed about 38 deposits. The largest: (Rechitskoye, Ostashkovichskoye (Svetlogorsky district), Vishanskoye (Svetlog. And Oktyabr. districts), Tishkovskoye (Rech. district), Davydovskoye (Svetlog. district). Gas. In the development of oil fields mined associated gas, deposits on ter. Borshchevsky, Krasnoselsky and Zapadno-Aleksandrovsky deposits. Peat. Stocks located. in all areas. Field Svetlogorsk, Vasilevichskoe, Lukskoe (Gom. Region), Berezinsky, Chistik, Smolevichskoe (Minsk. Region), Rare Horn, Dnieper (Tomb. Region), Berezovsky (Grodno. Region), Dobeevsky moss, Usvizh Buk, Vitebsk (Vit .region). It is used as local fuel, it is also possible to use. For production of organomineral fertilizers, filters, prod. For household chemicals, wood dyes, in mud therapy. Brown coals. There are 3 deposits in Gomelskaya. brown coal: Zhitkovichskoe, Brinevskoe and Tonezhskoe. To the industry The Brinevskoye field and two deposits at the Zhitkovichi field were prepared for development: Severnaya and Naidinskaya. oil shale . 2 cereals Deposit: Luban (Minsk region) and Turov (Gomel and Brest regions). Gor. sl potential raw material for the development of energy, chemical. prom-ti, pro-va builds. materials. Nonmetallic Potassium salts 3 deposits. Starobinskoe in Mins. region, Petrikovskoe and Oktyabrskoe in Gom. region). Republican Unitary Enterprise "PO" Belaruskali "at the Starobinsky field. Potash ores, from which potash fertilizers are produced. Rock salt. 3 deposits: Starobinskoye in the Min. Oblast, Davydovskoye and Mozyrskoye in the Gom. obl.) Salt is mined at the Mozyr deposit. And in recent years, mining of rock salt (food, fodder and technical) has begun at the Starobinsky deposit. Dolomites. Field Ruba in Vit.region, developed by Dolomit OJSC. The raw material is used for the production of dolomite flour, crushed dolomite, asphalt concrete coatings, as a refractory material, etc. Cement raw materials. Chalk. - more than 30 deposits. The largest is Kommunarskoye (Kostyukovichsky district). Margel - deposit. Kommunary and Kamenka (Mogilev region), Ros (Grodno region). Fusible clays (ceramic raw materials) Gaidukovo Minsk. district. Refractory and refractory clays . 6 deposits, 4 of which are in operation, the largest are: Gorodokskoye (Loevsky district), Stolin farms and Gorodnoye (Stolin district). Used for the production of refractories, refractory bricks, facing tiles. Glass and molding sands . 3 deposits. Molding Peskov: Lenino in the Dobrush region, Zhlobin and Chetvernya in the Zhlobin region.; Location glass sands: Gorodnoe (Brest region), Loevskoe (Gom. region) Building stone. Mestor. Mikashevichi, Glushkovichi, Sitnitsa, in the south of Belarus. Ore. Iron ore. 2 iron ore deposits: Okolovskoe deposit. ferruginous quartzites (Stolbtsovsky district, Minsk region) and Novoselkovskoye ilmenite-magnetite ores (Korelichsky district, Grodno region). Sapropels. 85 deposits, located. in all regions of the country, Sudable, Holy. Use In quality Fertilizers, additives to livestock feed, light building materials, for medicinal purposes. Mineral water . 63 sources, according to chem. comp. vyd: sulfate, chloride, sulfate-chloride, radon. Metalliferous brines . Nah. Within the Pripyat woodlands. They retain bromine, strontium, cesium, boron, magnesium, etc.

Influence of production p / and on the environment. environment is manifested in the following: the creation of anthropogenic forms of mesorelief: quarries, dumps; activation of geological processes (karst, landslides, screes, subsidence and displacement of rocks), mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution; depletion of aquifers and deterioration in the quality of ground and surface waters, etc. There are more than 40 thousand hectares in the country. lands requiring reclamation and restoration. Reclamation- restoration of industrially disturbed territories - provided for by law. Mining companies. resources are required to provide opportunities for the restoration of the disturbed landscape even before the start of work. After the cessation of open-pit mining, the surfaces of the dumps are leveled, terraces are made on the walls of the quarries, and toxic and barren rocks are covered with soil on which plants can live. Fertile soils are often used, which were removed from here at the beginning of the development of the field. Reclaimed areas are used for planting forests and creating recreation areas.

The nature of the relief, the level of occurrence of groundwater are taken into account when designing a mining system. They also affect the environmental consequences of mining: the placement of dumps, the spread of dust and gases, the formation of depression funnels, karst, the behavior of dump waters, and much more. The methods and extent of extraction of ores change over time.
Industrial mining, starting from the 18th century, was carried out with the help of vertical mine workings: deep pits (up to 10 m), mines. From the vertical working, if necessary, several horizontal workings were passed, the depth of which was determined by the level of groundwater occurrence. If they began to fill the mine, the pit, the extraction was stopped due to the lack of drainage equipment. Traces of old mine workings can be observed today in the vicinity of Plast, Kusa, Miass and many other cities and towns of the mining zone of the region. Some of them remain unclosed, not fenced off until now, which poses a certain danger. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment associated with the extraction of mineral raw materials hardly exceeded 100 m until the 20th century.

With the advent of powerful pumps that carry out drainage from workings, excavators, heavy vehicles, the development of mineral resources is increasingly carried out in an open pit way.

In the Southern Urals, where most of the deposits lie at depths of up to 300 m, open pit mining prevails. Quarries produce up to 80% (by volume) of all minerals. The deepest mine working in the region is the Korkinsky coal mine. Its depth at the end of 2002 was 600 m. There are large quarries in Bakal (brown iron ore), Satka (magnesite), Mezhozerny (copper ore), Upper Ufaley (nickel), Magnitogorsk and Maly Kuibas (iron).
Very often, quarries are located in the city, on the outskirts of villages, which seriously affects their ecology. Many small quarries (several hundred) are located in the countryside. Almost every large agricultural enterprise has its own quarry with an area of ​​1-10 hectares, where crushed stone, sand, clay, and limestone are mined for local needs. Typically, mining is carried out without observing any environmental standards.

Underground mine workings (mine fields) are also widespread in the region. In most of them, mining is no longer being carried out today, they have been worked out. Some of the mines are flooded with water, some are filled with waste rock lowered into them. The area of ​​worked-out mine fields in the Chelyabinsk lignite basin alone is hundreds of square kilometers.
The depth of modern mines (Kopeysk, Plast, Mezhevoy Log) reaches 700-800 m. Individual mines of Karabash have a depth of 1.4 km. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment in our time, taking into account the height of dumps, waste heaps in the territory of the Southern Urals, reaches 1100-1600 m.
Alluvial gold deposits in river sands have been developed in recent decades with the help of dredges - large washing machines capable of taking loose rock from depths of up to 50 m. Mining at shallow placers is carried out hydraulically. Rocks containing gold are washed away by powerful jets of water. The result of such mining is a "man-made desert" with a washed away soil layer and a complete absence of vegetation. You will find such landscapes in the Miass Valley, south of Plast. The scale of extraction of mineral raw materials is increasing every year.

This is due not only to an increase in the consumption of certain minerals, rocks, but also to a decrease in the content of useful components in them. If earlier in the Urals, in the Chelyabinsk region, polymetallic ores with a content of useful elements of 4-12% were mined, now poor ores are being developed, where the content of valuable elements barely reaches 1%. In order to get a ton of copper, zinc, iron from ore, it is necessary to extract much more rock from the depths than in the past. In the middle of the 18th century, the total production of mineral raw materials per year in the region was 5-10 thousand tons. At the end of the 20th century, the mining enterprises of the region processed 75-80 million tons of rock mass annually.
Any method of mining has a significant impact on the natural environment. The upper part of the lithosphere is especially affected. With any mining method, there is a significant excavation of rocks and their movement. The primary relief is replaced by man-made. In mountainous areas, this leads to a redistribution of surface air flows. The integrity of a certain volume of rocks is violated, their fracturing increases, large cavities and voids appear. A large mass of rocks is moved to dumps, the height of which reaches 100 m or more. Often dumps are located on fertile lands. The creation of dumps is due to the fact that the volumes of ore minerals in relation to their host rocks are small. For iron and aluminum, this is 15-30%, for polymetals - about 1-3%, for rare metals - less than 1%.

Pumping water from quarries and mines creates extensive depression funnels, zones of lowering the level of aquifers. During quarrying, the diameters of these funnels reach 10-15 km, the area is 200-300 sq. km.

The sinking of mine shafts also leads to the connection and redistribution of water between previously separated aquifers, breakthroughs of powerful water flows into tunnels, mine faces, which greatly complicates mining.
The depletion of groundwater in the area of ​​mine workings and the drying of surface horizons strongly affect the condition of soils, vegetation cover, and the amount of surface runoff, and cause a general change in the landscape.

The creation of large quarries and mine fields is accompanied by the activation of various engineering-geological and physico-chemical processes:

There are deformations of the sides of the quarry, landslides, mudslides;

There is a subsidence of the earth's surface over the worked-out mine fields. In rocks, it can reach tens of millimeters, in weak sedimentary rocks - tens of centimeters and even meters;

In areas adjacent to mine workings, the processes of soil erosion and gully formation are intensifying;

In workings and dumps, weathering processes are activated many times over, there is an intensive oxidation of ore minerals and their leaching, many times faster than in nature, there is a migration of chemical elements;

Within a radius of several hundred meters, and sometimes even kilometers, soils are contaminated with heavy metals during transportation, wind and water spread, soils are also contaminated with oil products, construction and industrial waste. Ultimately, a wasteland is created around large mine workings, on which vegetation does not survive. For example, the development of magnesites in Satka led to the death of pine forests within a radius of up to 40 km. Dust containing magnesium entered the soil and changed the alkaline-acid balance. Soils have changed from acidic to slightly alkaline. In addition, quarry dust, as it were, cemented the needles, leaves of plants, which caused their impoverishment, an increase in dead cover spaces. Ultimately, the forests perished.

The extraction of minerals and fuel sometimes leads to serious consequences not only for humans, but also for the environment as a whole. The confrontation between people and nature has long been one of the most difficult issues discussed by scientists. Ecologists say that the planet tolerates our presence and allows the "two-legged" inhabitants of the Earth a lot for a decent existence and earning money at their own expense. Note that the facts say otherwise. None of the types of human activity passes without a trace, and everything has its return.

War or rivalry?

The extraction of minerals and fuels, their transportation, processing and use bring undoubted benefits to people. At the same time, they have serious environmental consequences. Moreover, according to experts, it all starts from the moment the site is prepared for mining operations.

“There are many problems. During the exploration of deposits, forests are cut down, animals and birds leave their habitats, periodic pollution of the hitherto untouched nature with exhaust gases occurs, gasoline is spilled when refueling equipment, and so on. During the operation of fields, problems increase as more sophisticated equipment becomes available, as well as the possibility of an oil blowout, a breakthrough of a slurry pit, and other emergencies. Especially dangerous is the release of oil during offshore production, since in this case the oil spreads over the sea. Such pollution is very difficult to eliminate, and many marine life suffers. During the construction of oil and gas pipelines, leaks or pipe breaks are also likely, which leads to fires and soil pollution. And of course, all pipelines can also block the usual ways of animal migration,” says ecologist Vadim Rukovitsyn.

Over the past 50 years, excesses have become more frequent. In April 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico due to technical malfunctions. It entailed irreparable consequences - for 152 days, rescuers from all over the world were unable to stop the oil leak. The platform itself sank. To this day, experts cannot determine the volume of fuel that spilled into the waters of the bay.

It was calculated that as a result of a monstrous catastrophe, 75,000 square kilometers of the water surface were covered with a dense oil film. The most severe environmental damage was felt by the American states that are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico - Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida. The coast was literally littered with the corpses of marine animals and birds. In total, at least 400 species of rare animals, birds and amphibians turned out to be on the verge of extinction. Specialists recorded outbreaks of mass mortality of marine mammals within the bay, in particular, cetaceans.

In the same year, an accident on an Exxon Valdez tanker released a huge amount of oil into the ocean in the Alaska region, which led to the pollution of 2,092.15 kilometers of coastline. The ecosystem has been irreparably damaged. And today she still has not recovered from that tragedy. Representatives of 32 species of wildlife died, of which only 13 were saved. Could not restore one of the subspecies of killer whales and Pacific herring. It should be noted that such major tragedies occur not only abroad. The Russian industry also has something to “boast about”.

According to Rostekhnadzor, only in 2015, the following officially recorded accidents occurred at the oil industry facilities, accompanied by oil spills.

On January 11, 2015, LLC RN-Krasnodarneftegaz experienced a depressurization of an inter-field pipeline 5 km from the Troitskaya UPPNiV towards the city of Krymsk on the right side of the Slavyansk-on-Kuban-Krymsk highway. As a result of the release of oil in the amount of 2.3 m 3, the total area of ​​pollution was 0.04 ha.

On January 17, 2015, a spot 3 m in diameter with a characteristic smell of a condensate-containing liquid was discovered at Gazprom Dobycha Krasnodar LLC during scheduled work to clear the route of the Western Soplesk-Vuktyl condensate pipeline. As a result of the release of oil products in the amount of 10 m 3, the total area of ​​pollution was 0.07 ha.

On June 23, 2015, at RN-Yugansk-neftegaz LLC, as a result of depressurization of the pipeline UP No. 8 - TsPPN-1, an oily liquid leaked onto the water surface of the floodplain of the Cheuskin duct. The volume of spilled oil was 204.6 m 3 .

On December 29, 2015, at JSC RITEK, on ​​the oil pipeline SPN Miroshniki - TsPPN, about 7 kilometers from the village of Miroshnikov, Kotovsky District, Volgograd Region, a water-and-gas mixture with a volume of 282.35 m 3 was released with a total area of ​​pollution of 0.068 ha.

On December 25, 2015 at JSC RITEK, on ​​the oil pipeline SPN Ovrazhny - SPN-1, 7 kilometers from the village of Miroshnikov, Volgograd Region, a water and gas liquid with a volume of 270 m 3 came out with a total area of ​​pollution of 0.072 ha.

Experts also already have information about recent tragedies.

“A major accident occurred at the LUKOIL field named after Alabushin (Severo-Ipatskoye) in the Komi Republic in the spring of 2017, when the fire was extinguished only a month later. The amount of damage to the forest fund has approached 8 million rubles, the field needs repair of three nearby wells. In July 2017, there was a gas release at the Talakanskoye field in Yakutia. The reason was the destruction of wellhead equipment. There was no fire and the accident was eliminated in a fairly short time. The flaring of associated petroleum gas (APG) has a great impact on the environment. And, if in the whole country the level of APG utilization increased from 75% in 2011 to 86% in 2015, then in Eastern Siberia the problem of APG flaring is very acute. At the end of 2015, the total volume of gas production in the ESPO zone exceeded 13 bcm, most of which was flared. As a result, not only are millions of tons of combustion products emitted into the atmosphere, but also a strategic gas - helium - is lost, up to 10 million m 3 evaporates. This corresponds to 8% of the global helium consumption market,” recalls Alexander Klimentyev, scientific director of the Industrial Innovations project.

Where does the Motherland begin?

To put it bluntly, the miners are not to blame, they are just doing their job. The question is different: how skillfully all operations are carried out and how closely the quality of work is monitored. Most environmental and man-made disasters occur precisely through the fault of human negligence. Laziness is the engine of progress, but when damage can be done not only to nature, but also to the workers of the enterprise, the question arises of its legitimacy.

In our time, automation and modern security systems, of course, partially save, but even if the largest companies with a stable financial income have problems, we need to think about it. In order to reduce the adverse impact of oil production on the environment, the industry adheres to high environmental requirements. To prevent accidents, companies are introducing new performance standards that take into account past negative experience, and promote a culture of safe work. Develop technical and technological means to prevent the risk of emergencies.

“The main method of combating emergencies is their prevention. Therefore, periodic environmental monitoring is carried out at the deposits: samples of soil, water, air, plants are taken, noise is measured, and the species composition of animals is controlled. There is also an environmental supervisor at the facilities who monitors all processes at the site and makes sure that everything goes within the framework of environmental standards. During the exploitation of deposits, a brigade of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is always on duty, equipped with means for eliminating straits. When mining on the shelf, they also use the analysis of photographs of the sea from satellites for the prompt fixation of oil slicks and, accordingly, the timely elimination of an accident. When monitoring, helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, satellites are used to take photographs and ships are used to monitor the sea. At the moment, exploration is carried out at the Khataganskoye field using extremely sparing methods, since the Arctic ecosystems are the most sensitive to environmental impacts. The field is located under the bay, but the well is on land and is drilled at a certain angle. Thus, the alienation of space is minimal and possible straits will be easier to eliminate. It provides technologies for the absence of wastewater due to their maximum purification and reuse, as well as waste minimization. If mining is carried out correctly and the fields are properly reclaimed after they have been worked out, then the consequences for nature are the release of a large amount of harmful substances into the atmosphere during operation and the injection of a large amount of liquid into the lithosphere instead of oil. If we consider the real situation, then mining leads to a change in the habitats of animals, pollution of the natural environment with construction waste, periodic oil spills that spoil water, soil and air,” Vadim Rukovitsyn assures.

Exact numbers

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, even with the best technologies in the world, only 2-3% of the rock mass extracted from the bowels is used, and the rest of it turns either into industrial emissions, which is about 20%, or into waste. - about 78%. Waste tailings formed during the production of commercial iron ores, copper, zinc and pyrite concentrates contain a significant amount of copper, zinc, sulfur, and rare elements. They themselves not only occupy vast areas, but are also a source of pollution that poisons water, soil, and air. Over the years of development of deposits in the adjacent territories, a huge amount of solid mining waste has been accumulated, such as dumps, oxidized and off-balance ores, sludge in the mine neutralization ponds in the water. About five, according to the Ministry, the mining industry in Russia has accumulated tens of billions of tons of waste, including the dumps of processing enterprises.

For example, in the Urals, the total amount of waste reaches 10 billion tons. The share of the Sverdlovsk region accounts for up to 30% of waste from all of Russia. About 5 billion tons of waste is generated in our country every year, of which about 4.8 billion tons are obtained during the extraction of minerals. No more than 46% is recycled. For comparison: in Russia, only about 25-30% of man-made waste is recycled, while in the world this figure reaches 85-90%.

Also, at the enterprises of the coal industry, the volume of recorded accumulated dumps exceeds 10 billion m 3, and half of them are subject to combustion. Dumps of washed sands, formed as a result of the development of alluvial deposits in the Magadan region, amount to 1.5 billion m 3 and, according to estimates, contain about 500 tons of gold. More than 150 million tons of waste are stored annually in the Murmansk region, the total volume of which has reached 8 billion tons by now. Realizing the danger of these substances for nature, since 1989 Tatneft specialists have processed 1.4 million tons of oil sludge, liquidated about 100 barns containing them and returned about 30 hectares of land for agricultural production. Tatneft, together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, has begun construction of a pilot plant for processing bituminous oil with a capacity of 50 thousand tons per year, based on the use of the hydroconversion method and domestic catalysts for processing heavy residues, such as tar, into light fractions.

Now preparations are underway to develop man-made copper and nickel deposits that have accumulated over many years in the dumps of the Allarechenskoye deposit in the Murmansk region, the man-made deposit of Lake Barriernoye in the Norilsk mining region, and the slag dump of the Sredneuralsk copper smelter. In Russia, according to experts, more than 8 million tons of copper, 9 million tons of zinc and other useful components are concentrated in the waste of the copper, lead-zinc, nickel-cobalt, tungsten-molybdenum, tin, and aluminum industries. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources estimates the explored reserves of copper at 67 million tons with an annual production of 0.8 million tons, zinc - 42 million tons with an annual production of 0.4 million tons.

If useful components of technogenic raw materials are fully involved in the economic circulation, an increase in the volume of industrial products manufactured in Russia could amount to about 10 trillion rubles. This can give the budget for the entire period of development of this category of technogenic reserves in the form of taxes about 300 billion rubles, or about 20 billion rubles a year. Moreover, the indicated annual amount of taxes is comparable to the amount of taxes received from the entire non-ferrous metal mining sector. Technogenic deposits can make up for the country's deficit in strategic metals: nickel, copper and cobalt, gold, molybdenum, silver. However, today there are objective reasons for the lack of interest among potential investors. This affects the development of man-made deposits in Russia. The key reasons are the lower quality of ecological raw materials compared to natural deposits, which decreases even more over time, the complexity and high cost of extracting solid components due to the physical and chemical properties of raw materials, the lack of demand for certain types of raw materials in the presence of significant volumes and, of course, environmental risks. To create motivations for the development of technogenic raw materials, state coordination of all Russian participants in the process of developing technogenic deposits is necessary.

There are also acute issues related to the release of firedamps in dangerous concentrations for humans on the earth's surface in the residential sector. Despite the fact that most of the liquidated mines are flooded, and flooding levels have settled at a static level, gas release processes continue in a number of mining allotments of mines. On dangerous and threatening nature objects, regular sampling of air, soil and water is carried out. They also conduct preventive conversations with the local population. In 2015 alone, in 5 coal mining regions, more than 90,000 measurements and over 4,000 laboratory analyzes of the air environment were performed in 2,613 facilities, including 1,866 residential facilities. As practice shows, timely identified problems can not only prevent the occurrence of emergencies, but also stabilize the environmental situation in the mining areas. In some cases, even save significant budgetary funds.

Letter of the law

Scientists come up with new methods to combat pollution. But when will there be a stable result? Savings on service maintenance of industrial equipment and rigid selection of personnel does not give a positive result. “Perhaps it will do!” won't work in this situation. There are large companies and corporations that are steadily working not only to improve the efficiency of their enterprises, but also to develop automation in them. But, as practice shows, this is still not enough. Most environmentalists and civic activists demand the introduction of harsh penalties for neglect of nature during industrial work. Fine and close pest enterprises. However, this will not solve the main problem of our country - human laziness and, to some extent, the lack of self-preservation instinct in some employees. After all, if we do not think about ourselves and our future, why waste our time on a developing area and help the state get out of a difficult situation?

“There are many normative acts, starting with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, then codes, individual laws, for example, “On Environmental Protection”, government decrees, regulations, orders of ministries, instructions. Also the legislation of the regions. Separately, this branch of legislation is not codified. There is administrative responsibility for environmental pollution, concealment, deliberate distortion or untimely communication of complete and reliable information about the state of the environment and natural resources, about sources of pollution of the environment and natural resources or other harmful effects on the environment and natural resources. Last year, the Ministry of Natural Resources proposed amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses establishing administrative liability for failure to fulfill obligations to prevent and eliminate oil and oil product spills. As far as I know, they have not yet been adopted,” comments Vadim Krasnopolsky, project coordinator for the oil and gas sector of the Barents branch of the World Wildlife Fund.

It is outrageous that there is no obligation to save animals during environmental disasters. The maximum that threatens the culprit is a fine. In early August, the World Wildlife Fund, together with environmental organizations and PJSC Lukoil, held specialized trainings in Naryan-Mar. The purpose of the event was to prevent the death of animals in the event of accidental oil spills.

“The training took place in two stages. The first, theoretical, was devoted to planning operations to respond to an oil spill. The participants got acquainted with the best practices in animal rescue, studied the features of work in the Arctic, simulated the actions of rescue services in the event of an accident. During the practical course, which took place on the shore of the reservoir, the participants mastered the search for and collection of oil-polluted birds, got acquainted with the basics of veterinary care for affected animals, and, thanks to the special robot “Roboduck”, trained to catch birds at the oil spill site. The experience gained by the company's employees can be used in the future - to develop corporate documentation, conduct internal trainings and prepare emergency rescue teams, as well as to create best practices for the oil and gas industry in Russia," the WWF press service reports.

In 2015, the Gazprom Group commissioned 71 wastewater treatment plants and 15 water recycling systems. Many environmental measures have been taken to protect and reproduce fish stocks, clean up and beautify territories, including coastal areas. Financial support is provided to specialized organizations. In recent years, the enterprises of the Gazprom Group have released several million fry into the sea. At sea, in the places where the company operates, for example, around the Prirazlomnaya platform, fish protection devices have been installed.

The Board of Directors of Rosneft also approved a number of environmental protection targets for all aspects of environmental protection until 2025 inclusive. The main areas of work are the elimination of waste and pollution accumulated from the activities of third parties at the company's facilities, the timely fulfillment of environmental obligations arising from the current activities of the company. It also monitors the reduction of pollutant discharges into water bodies and the atmosphere, the conservation of biodiversity, energy and resource saving. All the activities of the company can be seen in the regular report on sustainable development of PJSC NK Rosneft.

Note that now experts are massively working to reduce the number of possible disasters. For example, the use of special dispersants can speed up the collection of spilled oil from the surface of the water. Artificially bred destructor bacteria sprayed onto an oil slick are able to process oil in a short time, turning it into safer products. To prevent the spread of oil slicks, so-called booms are widely used. It is also practiced to burn oil from the surface of the water. To combat atmospheric pollution with greenhouse gases, various technologies are being developed to capture carbon dioxide and utilize it. State bodies introduce new environmental standards.

Text: Kira Generalskaya