Environmental Effect of Mining Granite in Sauna Community of Kano State

Abstract

Artisanal solid mineral mining in Sauna Community of Kano State has resulted to environmental consequence.This is due to heavy metal pollution. A study of the environmental effect of Granite mining in Sauna Community of Kano state was carried out. Heavy metals such as Fe, Pb, Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn and Cd were determined using Atomic absorption spectrometry. The water quality of the surface water and mine pit water was evaluated using WQI. The surface water was polluted by cadmium, lead, nickel and chromium as the mean concentration of these four heavy metals occurred at higher concentration than the prescribed levels of WHO and SON. Consequently, the water quality ranking is very poor at WQI value of 213. The mine pit water is also of poor quality having been polluted by cadmium, lead and nickel yielding WQI of 178. Water quality index was employed in the assessment of the water quality of the impacted water bodies so as to ascertain how the quality of such water bodies has been affected by the mining activities. This study assessed pollution of the soils and sediments by heavy metals arising from mining activities using contamination factor, degree of contamination, geochemical accumulation index, pollution load index and potential ecological risk index. The contamination factor (CF) for all the heavy metals in the sediments of the surface water were below the background levels hence indicating there was no contamination of these heavy metals in the sediments. Given the degree of contamination of 0.9 for the sediment which is less than 8.0, the degree of contamination of the sediment is classified as insignificant. The pollution load index (PLI) is less than unity indicating no pollution. The geo-accumulation index (Igeo) is less than zero for each of the heavy metals indicating non-pollution. The potential ecological risk index of the heavy metals in the sediment is evaluated as 2.4 which is far less than 40 indicating low/insignificant ecological risks.

Keywords: Solid Mineral, Mining, Heavy Metals, Water quality, Pollution.

DOI: 10.7176/JEES/11-5-09

Publication date:May 31^st 2021