ISTC Project No. 1872 "Elaboration of the program for development and rehabilitation of Karabash by using technologies for processing technogenic deposits of the town".

The Project is being fulfilled jointly by the Institute of Solid State Chemistry (ISSCh) UB RAS and the All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics (ARRITP), Snezhinsk, and is supported by the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). The Project supervisors are N.М. Barysheva (ARRINP) and Е.V. Polyakov (ISSCh). The Project supervisor for science is Acad. G.P. Shveikin. The Principal researcher is Е.V. Polyakov.

Elaboration of the program for development and rehabilitation of Karabash by using technologies for processing of technogenic deposits of the town

The objective of the project is to work out informational, scientific and technological basis for investment projects aimed at the rehabilitation and development of the town Karabash by using internal and external resources, as well as to elaborate a recommendation program of “Karabash Remediation”.

In 1996, the town Karabash was officially recognized as an area of severe environmental disruption in Russia. Almost for 80 years, the Karabash Copper Smeltery has released estimated 12 million tons of hazardous substances. About 30 million tons of wastes have been dumped in the town because old technologies for raw materials processing have been used for years. The dumps contain considerable amounts of valuable substances, including copper, zinc, gold, silver, platinoids, rare-earth elements and trace rare metals.

The cost of useful components to be extracted depends on commercial treatment. No metallurgical plant in the Ural region provides integrated cost-effective treatment because of high power and capital demand. However, there are some innovative proposals using technologies of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, which demonstrate the feasibility of such treatment.
In the framework of this project it is proposed to:
– fully investigate all wastes accumulated in Karabash (composition, properties and amounts);
– seek for and assess the existing and innovative technologies for treating each type of waste;
– experimentally prove that some of them can be used specially for the Karabash deposits.

Consistent criteria will be developed to evaluate the technologies. They will take into consideration a diversity of factors including: performance, easy maintenance, end product marketability, secondary waste generation, risks to public safety and health, damage to environment, regulatory and legal basis, and potential returns, which can be used to fund our Karabash Remediation Program.
The project will essentially use the results of ISTC Project 500-98 “Priority Assessment for Preventing Environmental Contamination in the Middle Urals”, namely:
– cartography data of the Karabash geological and information system;
– databases on contamination sources and the state of environmental objects and public health;
– methods of environment priority assessment based on assessment of risks to public health.

On the basis of the obtained results:
– a set of technologies will be determined for waste processing and rehabilitation of environment and public health in the town;
– a “Karabash Remediation” model will be worked out.
The program to be developed under the project will be oriented towards exploitation of internal resources of the town. It will allow:
– the government bodies of the area to concentrate investments on the most critical activities related to remediation and development of the town;
– the local government to promote the development of internal resources of the town rather than to seek for external funds;
– demonstration of available resources and their effective use to potential investors;
– local residents to improve their lives.