Most of the mining waste is dumped on land. There are companies, which discharge waste rock or tailings in the sea and in some cases even in the river system as well. This is ecologically disastrous. The most widespread problem associated with waste dumps is acid drainage, which can have serious impact on the productivity of the ecosystems.

“Leaching of heavy metals and its impact in communities is a huge problem”. Although scientists believe that no impermeable sheeting is impermeable enough, dumps, which are susceptible to acid drainage, require permanent impermeable sheeting. Acid drainage persists in the environment and has serious impact on surface and groundwater and aquatic life.

It can lead to alarming reduction in our Natural Capital. Once the process of acid generation starts, it is difficult to stop it. The combination of acidity and dissolved toxic contaminants kills almost all forms of aquatic life. This renders water from the streams unfit for human consumption.

Even the science, which can predict such occurrence, is imperfect since it has only probable answers. This issue is dealt largely away form the publics view, as they are deemed too technical for them to understand in the conventional manner where regulatory process is disguised in jargons and is kept non-transparent. In all these cases the benefits are immediately visible and the costs are remotely manifest.

Indian government will do well to take lessons from the European Commission’s draft European Union law on the management of mining waste, which is designed to minimize operating emissions and prevent accidents. It is one of three proposed initiatives to improve mine waste safety outlined in the aftermath of serious pollution incidents in Spain and Romania. It seeks to introduce EU wide rules to prevent water and soil pollution from the storage of mining waste in tailings ponds and waste heaps.

Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom says, the new draft law comes just in time for the extension of the European Union to include 10 more countries next spring. The membership of the EU will increase from the current 15 to 25 on May 1, 2004, when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are due to become members, according to a news report released by Environment News Service on June 3, 2003.

It requires mine operators to draft waste management plans and makes provision for a safety manager to prevent accidents. A classification of waste facilities would also be drawn up once the law is adopted. The draft makes a case for full access to permit information, in keeping with Ĺarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision making. It includes requirements on monitoring operational mining waste facilities as well as for closer supervision of their closure.

Specific limits have been set on levels of cyanide in the tailing ponds of gold mines - 50 parts per million (ppm) falling to 10 ppm within 10 years. It is to be designed to prevent any reoccurence of the 2000 cyanide spill that started at a gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania and contaminated rivers through Hungary all the way to the mouth of the Danube River.

Mine operators are required to provide financial guarantees to ensure "appropriate liability cover" in respect of possible environmental damage. European Union countries are to record and exchange information on the implementation of these measures and lay down penalties for non-compliance. The commission says, Prescriptive requirements in respect of waste management plans, cyanide limits and water pollution reduction measures are necessary to protect the environment and harmonise controls across Europe. The new regime is likely to increase mine waste management costs by five to 10 percent on average.

It is estimated that waste from extractive industries amounts to about 29 percent of total waste generated in the EU each year, with an annual volume in excess of 400 million metric tons. The other two tools - a revision of the Seveso II law on major accident hazards and the drafting of a best available technique reference guide for mining waste - are also underway.

Is the Indian ministry of mines and minerals waiting for disasters to wake up? Since India produces 89 minerals, these result in diverse kinds of potentially hazardous waste. If we take the case of manganese ore to product and ore to waste ratio-for an average grade of 30 percent the ore to overburden ratio is that for every 13 million tones for ore mined 9 million tones must be disposed of as waste.

Similarly, according to Sridhar of mines, minerals and People-for every 5 gram of gold produced there is 1 tonne waste produced, for every 20 percent of coal produced there is 80 percent waste generation and for 12-14 gram of copper 1 tonne of waste is being generated in Malanjkhand copper field, Madhya Pradesh.

Mining and ore-benificiation along with asbestos and asbestos based industries are one of the 64-industries/industrial activities identified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) as heavily polluting industries, which classified as “ Red Category” industries on the basis of their emissions/discharges of high and having significant polluting potential or generating hazardous waste and which is covered under the Central Action Plan. It will germane in such a scenario for the Indian government to fine- tune its environmental laws with those of European Union.