Environmental site characterization for the International Smelter area and Bauer Mill, Utah, using hyperspectral data

Studies conducted under a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observations Commercial Applications Program (EOCAP) project on applications of hyperspectral data to mine and mill wastes have helped advance the acceptance or this remote sensing technology among the mining and environmental communities in the United States. Our work addressed mineralogical and vegetation analysis or mine and mill waste areas as a means of identifying environmentally important materials, both wastes and background, that are critical to understanding which wastes and impacted areas may require remediation and those that do not. In this presentation, we discuss two case studies: the International Smelter area east of Tooele, Utah, and the Bauer Mill and tailings ponds north of Stockton, Utah. These two sites represent the approximate ends of the mill site reclamation spectrum. The Bauer Mill, active from about 1900 to 1974, is a completely unreclaimed site with mill foundations, assorted outbuildings and townsite, waste dump, and large tailings ponds. The International Smelter area, active from 1910 to 1971 and 1981 to 1983, consists of "reclaimed" (but not necessarily "remediated") and revegetated tailings ponds, building sites, mine dump, and slag dump. The potential impact of windblown tailings from the Bauer tailings ponds and on-site and potential downstream impacts of unremediated wastes at International were topics of interest during our investigations