An Overview of Priority Pollutants in Selected Coal Mine Discharges in Europe

Coal mine discharges in several European countries were investigated as part of the European Commission’s MANAGER project. The emphasis of the project was identification of priority pollutants and potential remedial approaches. The main identified priority pollutants were sulphate (all countries) and iron (all countries except Greece). High concentrations of chloride (particularly in Germany and Poland) were associated with discharge of saline mine waters linked to the presence of fossil sea water; these mine waters also had high boron concentrations, in contrast to chloride-rich waters in UK that are linked to recent sea water inflow. Concentrations of trace metals vary among countries, but radium is an important contaminant in barium-rich waters with low sulphate concentrations, essentially in Poland. Concentrations of trace metals and metalloids were generally low because of their relative scarcity in coal strata and adsorption onto ferric oxides and hydroxides, but they still often exceeded the environmental quality thresholds.