Page 291 - Advances In Productive, Safe, and Responsible Coal Mining

Sustainable coal waste disposal practices 267

the sustainability of current practices in all facets of their operation but especially their
waste handling operations because, while they may not be the most glamorous side of
the business, they are surely the most noticeable to the general public. Because coal
reserves are finite resources, addressing sustainability in coal-mining ventures may
seem counterintuitive; however, “an enterprise that contributes to sustainable devel-
opment enhances its own sustainability as a business” [27]. If existing coal mines are
to continue operating and new coal mines are to be developed, all involved must incor-
porate sustainability concepts into their everyday thinking and practice. As one
Australian scientist noted, “The value of attention to sustainability is not so much
in what it stops us from doing but in what it encourages us to do differently” [28].
In that spirit, this chapter has called attention to various strategies that can be adopted
separately or in concert with one another. The first codisposal of coarse and fine
processing waste with the objective of eliminating liabilities is associated with fine
waste slurry impoundments. Taking this course of action requires investing in newer,
state-of-the-art dewatering technology. Two such technologies were briefly discussed:
one that is already commercially available and one that is still under development. The
authors are hopeful that work will continue to develop osmotic dehydration and other as
yet undiscovered methods for meeting the challenge of dewatering fine coal waste so
that it may become a usable raw material, either for mining applications such as back-
filling or perhaps in some revolutionary concept that is currently only a figment of imag-
ination in the mind of a future great scientist. Development and implementation of these
and other innovative concepts are proposed in an effort to guide the formulation of pol-
icies and practices that are both environmentally acceptable and economically sustain-
able and will satisfy requirements of stricter standards for coal waste disposal practices
that are sure to be faced by coal mine operators in the future.

References

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