Download CR/02/006N MINDEC user guide.

MINDEC manual version 1.0
April 2002
MINDEC provides a ‘best estimate’ of the threat to ground and surface water quality
and to the health of water consumers at a distant receptor site by calculating:
•
expected concentrations at the receptor site of a suite of potentially harmful trace
elements in waters originating from the mine waste site under study;
•
human health risk indices (toxic hazard quotients and for arsenic a carcinogenic
risk factor) for consumers of the contaminated waters;
•
a water quality standard (WQS) exceedance index, which provides an indication
of the extent to which the expected concentrations at the receptor exceed water
quality standards;
•
relative contaminant-element doses (as percentages of the total dose) from
surface water, groundwater and other water sources.
The program also gives some indication of:
•
contaminant travel times from the mine waste source to the receptor through the
groundwater pathway;
•
the expected duration of contaminant generation at the mine waste site.
1.2 Limitations
In order to accommodate the wide variety of conditions at different mine sites
MINDEC takes a necessarily simplistic approach to site assessment. It should be
emphasised that, due to the assumptions involved in the calculations (see 2.3
Assumptions) the results presented by MINDEC are suitable as a guide to site
prioritisation only and should not be interpreted as accurate predictions. Detailed
assessments of individual sites will require more site-specific models and extensive
site characterisation and data collection. Any interpretation of results obtained using
MINDEC will require a thorough understanding of the assumptions that underlie the
model (see sections 2.3 and 2.4).
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