Chris Krejci - Active Ore Mines with NPDES Permits 

 

Tom, 

Nevada 

There are approximately 197 mines in NV. 67 are covered under NV's mining SW general permits. 4 of these 

also have individual NPDES permit for discharge of dewatering water. The 130 mines without SW permits 

operate under a State issued groundwater permit only, and do not discharge to surface waters. 

Attached is the list of facilities subject to the mine permit. All are covered under the General Permit. All are 

minors, and I believe all are Active. 

 

The new permit (issued 6/07 ) requires that facilities monitor discharges from waste rock at least once/yr for the

following parameters. 

pH, Total Dissolved Solids, Phosphorus, Alkalinity (Total CaCO3), Bicarb (HCO3), Calcium, 

Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Aluminum, Antimony, Beryllium, Chloride, Flouride, Nickel, 

 Nitrate (as total nitrogen), Sulfate, Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Iron, Lead, 

 Manganese, Mercury, Selenium, Silver, Thallium, Zinc. 

EPA has not received any data for monitoring from the new permit, although the mines should have started 

collecting data this spring and the data should now be available at NDEP. 

The previous general permit did not require SW effluent monitoring. However, the permit did require that the 

permittees conduct a monitoring plan assessment. Many of the mines conducted an assessment using the 

Meteoric Water Mobility Test of the waste rock, which should indicate the quality of water flowing off the mine site 

based on natural conditions. I am sending you the compendium of this assssement that we required NDEP to 

provide us (which we used as a justification to force the next permit to contain monitoring); some of which 

contains useful monitoring data. I am sending this binder of materials to you for review, but I'll need it back at 

some point. 

Several permits have required monitoring data (mostly to comply with Forest Service requirements thru the EIS) 

and I have this data for 4 mines that I am also sending you. 

California 

CA has 24 sites with NOIs. We do not have any of this data. Attached is the NOI information. I know that 

several are inactive, but I do not have a list of active vs. inactive sites. 

Monitoring: Permit only requires monitoring for Total suspended solids (TSS) pH, specific conductance, and 

From: <Tinger.John@epamail.epa.gov>

To: Born.Tom@epamail.epa.gov

Date: 7/24/2009 8:50 PM

Subject: Active Ore Mines with NPDES Permits

CC: Hillenbrand.John@epa.gov; Eleanor.Codding@erg.com; Chris.Krejci@erg.com;...

Attachments: Nevada mine sites SW permit.xls; CA mine site SW NOIs.xls; ar_data.mdb

Page 1 of 2

file://C:\Documents and Settings\CKrejci\Local Settings\Temp\XPgrpwise\4B8E616DDO... 3/16/2010
 either total organic carbon (TOC) or Oil and Grease for all industrial facilities. For copper mines, there is 

additional sampling required for (unexplainably) TSS; COD; and N+N. 

Here is all the data CA has electronically for the MSGP . There are only a few mine sites, and limited data per 

permit requirements, so I dont think it will be much help. 

Arizona 

AZ uses the MSGP, so data is available for the EPA benchmark values. We do not have any data from the past 

5+ years, so that would have to come from ADEQ. I will get the full list of NOIs to you next week. 

John Tinger 

U.S. EPA Region IX 

NPDES Permits Branch 

(415) 972-3518

Page 2 of 2

file://C:\Documents and Settings\CKrejci\Local Settings\Temp\XPgrpwise\4B8E616DDO... 3/16/2010