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Coal mine-affected water releases, turbidity and metal concentrations in the Fitzroy River Basin, Queensland, Australia

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Abstract

Historical water quality datasets from the Fitzroy Basin, a large river system that receives mine-affected water from more than 40 mines, and drains into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon, were analysed. There is great public and environmental interest in these waters that are used for agriculture, recreation and raw drinking water supplies. Aside from one AMD-impacted area, waters were generally alkaline. Turbidity data regularly exceeded the regional water quality objective (< 50 NTU), indicating the presence of particulates that may accumulate or transport metal contaminants within the waters. Analyses of data for 14 metals showed dissolved Cu and Al, followed by Zn, were the parameters that were most often greater than Australian toxicant guideline values. Analysis of coal mine-affected water samples and the receiving creek data, showed that median turbidity was greater downstream than upstream of the mine water release points, suggesting release-water may contain particulate-bound metals. Median dissolved Al and Cu concentrations were lower downstream than upstream and were above guidelines. Preliminary modelling using WHAM7 suggested downstream dissolved Cu (2–5 µg/L) was bound to fulvic acid and was likely not bioavailable. Dissolved Al (170–550 µg/L) may have existed as Al(OH)−4. Overall, suspended particulate matter appeared to be a water quality parameter of interest in this mine-affected river basin. Further targeted sampling, direct measurement of particulate-bound metals and multivariate statistical analysis are needed to help better understand metal partitioning in these turbid, alkaline waters.

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Adapted from: FPRH (2013), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and Central Queensland University postgraduate research funding. The authors thank the Coal Minesite Rehabilitation Trust Fund for CEJ’s living allowance scholarship, the Queensland Resources Council for liaison with industry, the Fitzroy Partnership for River Health for the provision of data, and the Department of Natural Resources and Mines and the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection for advice and access to online data. CEJ also thanks Dr Nicole Flint for reviewing earlier versions of the manuscript.

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  1. James Chapman

    Present address: School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

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  1. School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, QLD, Australia

    Catherine E. Jones, Victoria Vicente-Beckett & James Chapman

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  1. Catherine E. Jones
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  2. Victoria Vicente-Beckett
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Correspondence to Catherine E. Jones or Victoria Vicente-Beckett.

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Jones, C.E., Vicente-Beckett, V. & Chapman, J. Coal mine-affected water releases, turbidity and metal concentrations in the Fitzroy River Basin, Queensland, Australia. Environ Earth Sci 78, 706 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-019-8734-x

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