Soil-cover remediation of mill tailings deposits: Effects on oxygen transport and hydrological conditions

An approach is presented to couple the hydraulic properties and the depth to the groundwater table to oxygen diffusion in soil cover-remediated and unremediated mill tailings deposits. The results show that spatial variations in the diffusion properties and the depth to the groundwater table may yield substantial underestimation of the field-scale oxygen flux if homogeneous conditions are assumed in calculations. The study also shows that surface water control and soil-cover remediation may have large influence on the hydrological conditions in tailings deposits.