ABSTRACT
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is conducting priority cleanups of tailings and waste rock dumps at abandoned mine sites. Typically, these sites contain tailings piles, cyanide heaps and rock dumps that were historically constructed in or near drainages and are releasing pollutants into watersheds. BLM selects the most environmentally suitable site for removal of mining waste and placement into repositories and to comply with regulations. A repository is an engineered disposal cell similar to a landfill. Repositories have different design features based on site-specific conditions and use of water balance models. This paper also provides a case-study for screening and selection of a repository site using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at the Ute-Ulay site in Colorado.
