Fisheries and Hard Rock Mining

As human population expands so does demand for renewable and nonrenewable resources.  Human activities are linked to widespread extinction of North American freshwater fishes; primary causal factors are habitat destruction and degradation.  About 39 percent of 1,200 described North American inland fishes are imperiled and current extinction rate averages about 5.5 taxa per decade since 1890. Demand for fish as a protein and recreational resource is expanding and sustainability of fish resources depends on balancing their essential habitat needs with competing land and water uses, such as metal mining.

Metals serve important functions in technology, industry and everyday use. However, metal mining can raise sustainability issues relative to fisheries.  Metal extraction and processing requires landscape alteration, copious amounts of freshwater, and long-term or perpetual waste storage and treatment.  Biologists focused on balancing fisheries and metal mining requirements are often challenged to assess risks, predict impacts, avoid and/or mitigate impacts, and implement monitoring programs, often with limited information.  

The purpose of this symposium is to encourage biologists involved in fisheries and metal mining issues to share their knowledge and experiences, especially in relation to:

• Case studies illustrating mine developments compatible and incompatible with fisheries sustainability
• Essential baseline data for impact prediction and mitigation
• Risk Assessments
• Metals toxicity
• Development of long term monitoring programs
• What is a “low risk” versus “high risk” mineral development relative to fisheries
• Successful and unsuccessful mitigation for fish habitat loss

Various aspects of how mining can impact fisheries will be discussed including: what we need to know about fish habitat, biointegrity, hydrology, water chemistry, toxicology, metals impacts on fish, monitoring, ecosystems, pollution indices, metals bioavailability and how to minimize or avoid impacts to fisheries.  The question of whether fisheries and mining is compatible and what conditions must be met to determine compatibility will be addressed.