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SOIL AND GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION AROUND THE LOJANE AS-SB MINE, REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
Abstract
The Lojane arsenic-antimony deposit with its former mine facilities, for a longer period, represents source of contamination with heavy and toxic metals into the air, water and soil. Remains of mine waste in Suvi Potok near the Vakcince village, open waste and concentrate storage pond from the Lojane Mine and storage of reagents and toxins near the Tabanovce village represent source of pollution with As, Sb, Hg, Tl, Pb, Mo, Mn etc., which directly threaten surface and ground water in the vicinity of Vaksince, Lojane and Tabanovce as well as soil on a wider area between those three villages. In the groundwaters, the concentrations are: As 16-402 mg l-1, median 33 mg l-1; Sb 0.1-166 mg l-1, median 0.6 mg l-1; Mo 0.3-3.5 mg l-1. For all samples there is a close positive correlation between As and Sb (correlation coefficient 0.9915), but molybdenum have shown strong correlation to As (0.871) and Sb (0.8079) as well. Twenty-two samples of soil and sediment from locations from the mine dumps exhibit some very high concentrations of As (median 132 mg kg-1) and Sb (median 89 mg kg-1). Concentrations of Mg, Cr and Ni are also high in many of these samples (MgO up to 18.32 wt%, Cr up to 595 mg kg-1, Ni up to 1119 mg kg-1), no doubt illustrating the influence of the serpentinite on the samples. Chromite was noted as being an HF-insoluble phase during the chemical analysis of many of the samples. Statistical analysis performed on results of soil and sediment results have shown that the highest correlation coefficients, as it was expected, occur for As-Sb (0.9924), As-Mo (0.9851), As-Tl (0.9820), As-Cu (0.8535), As-Pb (0.8215), Sb-Mo (0.9943), Sb-Cu (0.8784) and Sb-Pb (0.8301). Beside the statistical parameters, which defined relations between particular elements remains the fact that the highest concentrations in analyzed grounwater and soul samples showed arsenic and antimony as main pollutants and toxic metals in this area.
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