Water is essential for life in our planet, but mining has negative impacts on it. Although, according to latinlawyer, the mining supplies for mine projects in Colombia have been taken from natural water bodies near the mine sites, these water concessions need to have an environmental license, and are forced by law to:
Use only allowed amounts of water.
Build appropriate installations.
Avoid damaging and contamination of the water for public, agricultural or industrial porposes.
Contribute to conservation of hydraulic constructions
Mining still can harm the environment, specially water bodies in several ways. One example is the acid mine drainage, which is when big amounts of rock containing sulphide are shoveled with an open hole and get in contact with oxygen and water. It creates sulphidric acid, and when water reaches high amounts of this acid bacteria called Thiobacillus Ferroxidans, this bacteria could damage the whole process, decrease water quality and kill aquatic life.
Carlos Calero - Luciana Quintero
Mining affects biodiversity a lot. It contaminates biodiversity by using materials that kill animals, nature, and it can even kill humans. These materials are mercury, cyanide and some others that are dangerous for the environment and the animals. Flora and fauna are highly affected, because the in destruction of a forested zone, the animals would not have a shelter, and they are forced to migrate to another zone, and during the migration a lot of animals die because they can't resist all that time without staying in the same place. Another cause is that they don't eat that much, most of the time. Whether it is legal or illegal mining, it produces a powerful and harmful chemical pollution, and this is very bad because it affects water, since the use of explosives creates a big disaster and contaminates water bodies.
Mining uses a lot of water, which negatively impacts the planet, since it is running out of water, which is vital for the humans, plants and animals' health.
Illegal mining is the more contaminating type of mining. It does not take a good care of the employees, nor has the government's authorization and it is developed by armed groups that just want money and that's bad for our country, Colombia, because 9% of our economy comes from mining. They use minerals that contaminate a lot, without taking care neither of the environment nor the animals.
There is another type of mining, the urban one. That extracts expensive materials like diamond and gold, and with those materials they just do electronic devices like cellphones or a computers. They exploit between 7 to 16 mines different mines in the elaboration of such devices.
And the last type of mining is the one supervised by the government, the legal mining. It is the one that has the best security for the employees who work in there, so that they do not get sick or hurt during the exploration process of a mine. They try to use less minerals and substances that contaminate the environment, because they take good care to do it.