Effective Environmental Management System of Acid Mine Drainage at Kyisintaung Copper Surface Mine in Myanmar

The utilization of copper products is increasing gradually worldwide as it is broadly utilized in many utilities such as electrical equipment, mechanical, architecture, and military industries. Except recycling of old copper, the production process usually begins with the mining of copper ore that causes the environmental and social problems unless proper management systems are exercised. This study has been conducted at Kyisintaung copper open-pit mine located near the confluence of the Yama Creek and the Chindwin River in Monywa District, Sagaing Region, Myanmar. The main purpose of this research is to study the effect of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) on the nearby environment at Kyisintaung copper mine by studying the current Environmental Management System, the mine has adopted, and identifying the effects of AMD in the surrounding water body by studying the surface and groundwater quality in the area. The study highlights the detailed analysis of the study programme and the results and findings have been discussed thoroughly. It has been observed that the findings from this study indicate that the mine is environmentally safe since it utilizes the hydrometallurgy process (method), which can be also named as environmental-friendly or eco-friendly process. It is also noticed that the method can be utilized to process low grade copper ore to get marketable copper metal at 99.99%. Moreover, all the research findings, except TSS, indicates that the effects of acid mine drainage around the area are insignificant as the laboratory analysis results of studied pollutants such as pH, temperature, hardness, conductivity, TDS, DO, Cu, Fe, Pb, Mg, SO42-are within the guideline limit of NEQG. Finally, it has been noticed that there are no significant effects of AMD to surface and groundwater around the mine site, no water pollution sources to the environment, no serious environmental damages caused by AMD to near-by areas, and hence the adopted EMS of the mine is considered to be an effective system