Proceedings and Summary Report Workshop on Assessing and Managing Mercury from Historic and Current Mining Activities

Mercury deposits in mines have been shown to pose a significant hazard to residents and wildlife where drainage from these deposits enters the environment through streams and rivers. For this reason, the extent of mercury contamination in the United States is of significant environmental concern. The U.S. Environ­ mental Protection Agency (EPA) is investigating the many different sources of mercury contamination. As a result of these uncertainties, numerous EPA Program Offices–including the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS), Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), Office of Water (OW), Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER), and Office of Research and Development (ORD)–have made commitments to enhance government, industry, and public awareness of potential hazards associated with the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) effects of mercury in the environment. In fact, mercury is one of many PBT chemicals that continues to be an environmental concern, as generated hazardous waste or incidental release to the environment, long after its intended use. It is the Agency’s intent to reduce the generation of PBTs, including mercury, in hazardous waste by 50 percent by the year 2005 through various pollution prevention and state-of-the-art disposal practices (EPA, 1998). A workshop, Assessing and Managing Mercury from Historic and Current Mining Activities, was held on November 28-30, 2000 in San Francisco, California. The primary objectives of this workshop were to 1) identify state-of-the-science practices and techniques for reducing the use and release of mercury at its source, while understanding mercury fate and transport mechanisms and assessing mercury’s impacts to human health and the ecology, and 2) determine what role ORD can play in the research activities required to fulfill the goal of the Mercury Research Strategy (MRS). Presentations during the plenary session, techni­ cal sessions, and panel discussions addressed identifying and characterizing sources, mercury speciation and mobility, watershed impairment, watershed management tools and priorities, air emissions and im­ pacts, and remediating and treating contaminated sites and materials. Presenters were from EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), state agencies, industry, academia, technology developers, consulting firms, and international organizations. This report contains a summary of the material presented during the work­ shop, including technical session abstracts and summaries of the plenary session and the panel discussion. The final agenda and list of attendees are presented in Appendices A and B.