The Global Symposium on Soil Pollution #GSOP18 | 2 - 4 May 2018 | FAO Hq Mr. Geoffrey Siemering, University of Wisconsin, US

2. Addressing Mine-Scarred Land in
the Upper Mississippi River
Mining District
Geoffrey Siemeringa, Kyle Peppa, Sarah Balgooyenb,
Shannon Plunketta, Emma Leverichb, Matt Ginder-
Vogelb, Doug Soldata, Steve Venturaa
a. Department of Soil Science University of Wisconsin, Madison
b. Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison

3. Upper Mississippi Valley Zinc and Lead District
From 1820-1979:
-814,000 tons lead
-1,000,000 tons
zinc
~40,000,000 tons
ore

4. Cleveland Mine, Hazel Green, WI
• Cleveland Mine, Hazel Green
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society

5. Blockhouse Mine, Platteville, WI
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society

6. Empire Mine, Platteville, WI
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society

7. Current Day Mine-Scarred Site

8. Unhealthy outcomes for crops and people!

9. Initiatives to assist local communities
1. Integration of mine map resources into current
GIS based mapping systems
2. Evaluate the ability of common, inexpensive soil
tests to estimate bioaccessible Pb.
3. Quantify the effectiveness of organic
amendments at realistic rates to reduce Pb
bioavailability.

10. Regional Mining History
1600-1850
• Lead Surface Mining
• Scattered small-scale
operations prior to ~1820
• Civil War munitions
• Surface lead
contamination
1850-1929
• Underground Mining
• Gravity Concentration (tailings
at mine site)
• Roasting and magnetic refining
(tailings along railways)
1929-1979
• Underground Zinc Mining
(new technology)
• Gravity Concentration
(tailings at mine site)
• Froth flotation refining
(isolated tailings slurry ponds)
Lead digging sites with
LIDAR Hillshade
Farming above mine site Acid Slurry Pond

11. Mapping Process
Digitize Layers from Mine Atlas:
• Underground Mines
• Boreholes
• Lead Digging Sites
• Open Pit Mines
• Mines Shafts
• Abandoned Railroads
• Acid Plants
• Unsurveyed
Underground Mines
• Missing Data Areas

12. Mine Development

13. Planning Applications
Add relevant layers:
• City Owned Parcels
• WDNR Impaired Waters
• Civil Divisions
• Highways and Roads
• Orthophotos
• LIDAR Hillshade

14. Simplifying Lead Bioaccessability Testing
1. Soil remediation increasingly takes contaminant
bioavailability into account
2. Existing in vitro bioaccessability assays are not
readily available and more costly than simple soil
tests
Do correlations exist between simple soil nutrient
tests and the current ‘gold-standard’ USEPA Method
1340 (Relative Bioavailability Leaching Procedure)?
• Submitted to ES&T “Use of Routine Soil Tests to
Estimate Pb Bioavailability” Plunkett et al.

15. Tests Compared
• Phosphorus tests:
1. Olsen
2. Mehlich 1
3. Mehlich 3
4. Bray P1
• Heavy metal test:
1. DTPA Extractable Metals
• Pb Bioaccessibility Assays:
1. Modified EPA Method 1340
2. Urban Soil Bioaccessible Lead Test (Chaney, 2012)
• Plano reference soils divided into six treatment groups:
• No Phosphorus; 1:1 P:Pb, 2:1 P:Pb, 5:1 P:Pb, 10:1 P:Pb, 25:1 P:Pb
• Amended with H3PO4 solution (1:1 soil: solution) and stirred daily until dry.
• Added Ca(OH)2 to increase pH. Final pH 5.65-6.64.

16. Amendment of Mine Impacted Soil
Randomized block design with 1000mg P kg-1
treatments:
• Compost
• Fishbone meal + sulfur
• Triple super phosphate (TSP)
• Phosphoric acid
• Non-amended control.

17. Observed Changes in Bioaccessible Pb
A
-10.17% AB
+8.86%
A
-1.47%
C
+37.34%
BC
+25.37%
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Compost Fishbone meal H3PO4 TSP Control
BioaccessiblePb(%)
May June

18. Theoretical Changes in Bioaccessible Pb?
-35.54%
-16.51%
-26.84%
+12.37%
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Compost Fishbone meal H3PO4 TSP
BioaccessiblePb(%)
May June

19. Mine Scarred Land with Fish Bone Meal Amendment
XAS-derived molar percentages
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Control H3+45d H3+275d H8+45d H8+275d
Pb2O Pb-acetate Pb-carbonate pyromorphite Pb-sulfide PbO
Molar %

20. Pb-contaminated Urban Garden Soil with Fish Bone
Meal Amendment
XAS-derived molar percentages
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
M1 M1+12M M1+24M M2 M2+12M M2+24M
Pb2O Pb-acetate Pb-carbonate pyromorphite Pb-sulfide PbO

21. Conclusion
• Historic records may speed identification of likely
contaminated sites
• Mehlich-3 may serve as a simpler test for
bioaccessibility than RBALP
• Organic amendments decrease bioaccessibility, but
in high Pb soils cannot realistically by applied in
sufficient volume.

22. Acknowledgements
Dr. Kirk Scheckel, USEPA, Land Remediation and Pollution
Control
USDA Hatch Grant Program
UW Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate
Education
This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source,
a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User
Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne
National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.