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Located in Saline County, Arkansas, the Hurricane Creek
facility is the location of an alumina refining plant and the associated
open-pit and underground bauxite mines. The pits at the site were of various
sizes. The largest was over a half of a mile long and approximately 100 feet
deep, and required 7.5 million cubic yards of fill to bring it to final contour.
The plant had originally been built at the start of World War II and was owned
by the Federal Government. After the war, Reynolds Metals Company purchased the
plant and its surface and underground mines.
Hurricane Creek during mining
activities.
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The site is over 2,000 acres in size. Today, the plant
buildings have been demolished, the mine pits and the 600 acre slurry ponds have
been reclaimed. Due to lignite in clays above the ore beds, Reynolds Metals
developed a reclamation plan that insured that the acid-bearing materials were
covered by a minimum three feet of non-acidic material. When these mines were
being opened, traditional mining methods did not include separating the topsoil
from the other overburden. Therefore, Reynolds developed a system to create new
topsoil once the mine spoils had been replaced in the pit and the final contour
had been reached. The topsoil was developed by placing 18 inches of a by-product
known as "brown mud." This material was a slurry by-product of the
production of alumina, which is the first step in making aluminum metal from raw
bauxite. The mud has a pH of 13, while the mine spoil was typically a pH of 3 to
4. Mixing these two materials created three feet of an almost neutral pH
topsoil, which was essentially sterile. Reynolds developed a method using the
abundant waste litter from the state’s large poultry industry to add the
needed nutrients and organic material to the new topsoil. The brown mud lakes
themselves were also reclaimed by covering the material with mine spoil and
creating topsoil to grow a vegetative cover. This system has worked very well
for Reynolds and has been very cost effective for them. |
Reynolds Metals Hurricane Creek site
following reclamation. |
The use of chicken litter as a soil amendment has been deemed a
success at this site and is a common "technology transfer"
topic that the Regulatory Authority passes along to other mining
operations in the state. The basic plan for the reclamation of the area
was for development of pasture lands and wildlife habitat. |
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