C&R Consulting's mining expertise has been sought by major mining companies throughout Australia. C&R has a unique combination of specialists who work together to produce greater outcome, both in terms of environmental performance and residual risk than is possible by a single entity.
Services provided by C&R Consulting are focused on providing effective solutions for environmental problems. This requires a higher level of knowledge than typical, straight forward baseline assessments.
Services provided to the mining industry by C&R Consulting are outlined below. These areas have been divided into disciplines. However the main advantage provided by C&R is a complete and thorough understanding of the inter-relationships between the disciplines, that provides the client with a much more comprehensive assessment.
C&R Consulting can provide aquatic ecological services to the mining industry. C&R Consulting’s aquatic ecological arm is heavily linked to the geomorphology and chemical units.
Throughout the Fitzroy Basin, Receiving Environment Monitoring Programmes require macroinvertebrate monitoring to determine baseline levels in remnant pools during and following the wet season.
REMP Monitoring and AssessmentThe services provided in the field of Aquatic Ecology are undertaken by staff who are intrinsically aware of the processes occurring in the seasonally arid tropics.
Contaminated Sites and Soil Treatment in tropical/sub tropical areas are a specialisation of C&R Consulting. C&R provide Acid Sulphate Soil (ASS) and Potential Acid Sulphate Soil (PASS) investigations and risk assessments, dispersive and erodible soils analyses, landfill and mine site solutions, mineralogical and hydrogeochemical investigations and they can offer realistic remediation solutions often using local materials only. C&R have many years experience working with various soil types and fully recognise and understand all aspects of soil management and soil properties. C&R Consulting are considered Australia's leading experts on the properties of swelling clays and soil dispersivity.
C&R can provide full hydrogeochemical, soil mineral and contaminant movement assessments. The unique knowledge C&R possesses of soils and chemistry allows for efficient, low technology, low cost remediation options to be designed and applied to varying contaminated land scenarios.
C&R Consulting has environmental officers that have served on mine-sites and are familiar with the issues associated with legislative compliance. Staff of C&R consulting have the ability to undertake the following services with relation to compliance issues across mine-sites, and are also able to assist with periodical reporting and compliance assessments.
Land Use Suitability Classification assessments are commonly required throughout Australia prior to the development of a mine. These assessments are used to set a benchmark for rehabilitation design purposes. A slightly more in-depth analysis of the linkages between soil and vegetation can reduce rehabilitation design and monitoring costs over the long-term, as well as increase the certainty in rehabilitation design practices.
Vegetation classifications often required for mine-sites are inherently linked with the scattering of endangered vegetation around the landscape.
C&R Consulting have significant expertise in geological field mapping across all terrains and lithology types. Our highly qualified staff retain expanded knowledge of the igneous rocks of North Queensland that allow detailed petrographic analysis (including economic petrology) and petrologic interpretation of construction materials (particularly the recognition of alteration and fracture sequences that are readily translated to engineering rock quality). C&R Consulting are also highly experienced in clay mineralogy enabling accurate prediction of clay products beyond optical resolution through detailed knowledge of the gross mineralogy of geological materials as determined under the polarising light microscope.
Geomorphology is the combination of geological investigation, soil science, hydrology, vegetation analysis and sediment analysis that allows for an understanding of processes operating on a local, regional, floodplain and catchment scale. Gaining an understanding of both the current processes operating in the landscape and past processes that may still be playing a role leads to a much better understanding of terrain at varying scales.
Geomorphic investigations can be undertaken on their own for a particular piece of infrastructure (i.e. levees, dams, weirs, mines, highways and culverts) or can be undertaken as part of a much larger study.
C&R Consulting possesses a unique understanding of geomorphic processes operating in the seasonally arid tropics and how these impact infrastructure construction requirements. Services offered by C&R Consulting in the field of geomorphology include:
These assessments require the integration of mathematical and environmental data sets, a process often overlooked with a pure ‘engineering’ design focus for infrastructure.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an important management tool in Environmental Planning and Resource Management. The ability to rapidly assess and analyse various sets of data in one environment / media can be crucial to cost-effective project management, ecological planning and resource management. C&R Consulting offer new and innovative services in the field of GIS as a stand-alone service, or in conjunction with any other C&R Consulting services. This includes a total mapping process, from infield collection of spatial data to complex evaluation of environmental factors.
A new area recently developed by C&R Consulting in the GIS field is Geo-Referenced Video Mapping (GRV Mapping). GRV Mapping integrates DVD Video image with GPS data in a format that can be overlain on to aerial photographs, satellite imagery, topographic, soils, geological and/or vegetation GIS data, to produce an extremely useful tool for investigative planning, asset and resource management, environmental management and monitoring, auditing, and most other development projects. Geo-Referenced Video Mapping solutions can significantly reduce project costs by reducing the number of site visits and providing a visual and temporal record of progress or environmental impact.
Rehabilitation is perhaps the most important aspect of mining as it will represent the condition of the post-mining landscape. Our knowledge of the interactions between soil, vegetation and water allow C&R Consulting to successfully design rehabilitation strategies based on the chemical and physical properties of local soils. This will result in a much lower probability of failure and much better outcomes in the medium – long term as rehabilitation works with local landscape processes.
Services offered by C&R Consulting relating to rehabilitation include:
C&R Consulting have formed a working alliance with AME Surveys. We also work closely with a number of Town Planners. These alliances allow us to offer a complete package to the client, providing a combined, seamless approach from early exploratory investigations to the final lodgement with Local councils and other regulatory authorities.
In conjunction with AME Surveys Pty Ltd, we offer:
Management of Water often plays a critical factor throughout the mining industry. Vast resources can be used to manage scenarios where there is too much water, not enough water, or water of an unsuitable quality.
C&R Consulting is positioned with a unique understanding regarding the inter-relationships of water with other environmental variables (such as geochemistry, vegetation , the atmosphere, and soils). This knowledge has allowed C&R Consulting to provide low-cost, low-technology solutions to environmental problems regarding water. Furthermore, this knowledge allows C&R Consulting to more accurately and more precisely predict potential hazards regarding water in the mining environment.
Services undertaken by C&R Consulting relating to water in the mining industry are outlined below.
Water Sampling and Monitoring
With offices in Central Queensland, North Queensland and Western Australia, C&R Consulting are able to undertake water quality monitoring and water sampling throughout many mining environments. Added knowledge of the inter-relationship between many minerals within waterways and dams allows C&R Consulting to reduce the number of analytes required, reducing ongoing costs to the client.
Expert geological knowledge can be applied to the creation of groundwater monitoring programmes, ensuring that correct geological layers are targeted to detect changes in groundwater quality and volume. This allows cost-savings in the long-run of mining infrastructure because of targeted sampling requirements.
Water Management Planning and Water Quality Solutions
Differing mines in different situations can have vastly diverse water requirements. Most Coal Mines in the Bowen Basin are left with the burden of dealing with a water excess, whilst many metals mines in other areas of Queensland deal with a lack of water supply, and / or contamination of water from the mining and refining process.
C&R Consulting is positioned to offer its services to help all mines better manage water throughout all development, operational and rehabilitation phases. The experience and expertise of C&R Consulting personnel is focused around the movement and chemical evolution of water as it moves through the landscape (both surface water and groundwater).
The expert chemical and landscape knowledge of C&R Consulting with respect to water and its interactions with soils and geology allows us to provide a simple low-technology, low-cost option to meet water quality solutions where it can be provided. Such solutions can include:
These options are typically used and incorporated into standard documents required for many mine-sites across Australia and internationally, such as waste management plans, contaminant management plans and water management plans.
Chemical Assessment and Modelling
Predicting the chemical behaviour of water can be invaluable in many mining applications. Combining waters from two different sources can often have many unexpected effects generated from the reaction of various parameters.
C&R Consulting possess chemical modelling software (Geochemist’s Workbench) that allows us to predict water quality under various scenarios, such as:
C&R Consulting have used this ability to predict the volumes required to dilute waters from varying sources to comply with local background quality, environmental authority conditions or local guidelines (such as ANZECC 2000) and to determine end uses possible with varying water qualities (such as irrigation, dilution treatment, stock watering etc). Contamination of runoff water from passing over waste stockpiles, local geology, or contaminated land can be effectively and efficiently modeled by C&R Consulting to determine what water quality treatment methods can be used to remove the contamination. Lately this ability has been used to predict the length of mixing zones in local streams as a result of Transitional Enviornmental Programmes.
Groundwater Assessment and Remediation
Groundwater resources are becoming increasingly important in all facets of Australian life, from industrial and agricultural extraction to residential reliance in rural areas. It has also recently become clear that there are a wide variety of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs), including faunal and floral assemblages, that can be adversely affected by decreases in groundwater quality, and that over-extraction may cause irreversible damage to both groundwater quality and the ecosystems that depend on it. Understanding the fundamental relationship between surface and groundwater systems is essential to sustainable water resource management. In turn, the sustainable use of water resources is essential to ensure that they remain available in sufficient quality and quantity both for human use and to maintain the health of Groundwater Dependent species and ecosystems, still lacking in definition.
Flooding Risk Assessment and Flow Assessment
Processes operating in the seasonally arid tropics are vastly different than in temperate areas, where many models and risk assessment frameworks have been developed and targeted for. A thorough understanding between the interplay between El Nino & La Nina cycles, the monsoon, rainfall, runoff, groundwater recharge, vegetation and soils in the seasonally arid tropics of Australia allow C&R Consulting to modify established frameworks and models to better suit the on-ground conditions prevalent throughout the seasonally arid tropics. This allows for the proper design of flood mitigation infrastructure to reflect on-ground conditions rather than standards developed for temperate areas having a completely different climate regime.
Mining – Agriculture Linkages
Mining and agriculture can share and compete for water, often causing additional stress on an already precious resource. This can result in disputes over water allocation and high outtakes from a limited supply, having an impact on other sectors.
Additionally many mine waste waters can be used for agricultural purposes with simple treatment mechanisms put in place to reduce specified contaminants. The unique knowledge of C&R Consulting regarding soil and water chemistry allows us to design low-cost, low-technology treatment mechanisms to ensure beneficial use can occur. More information on these Linkages can be found here.
