Hazardous Waste Spills by Arizona mines illustrate the impacts to the environment by mining
National Response Center started creating a database of Hazardous Waste Spills (Incidents) in 1990
Records of Hazardous Waste Spills by Arizona mines only--
Records for ASARCO 1990 - 2012
Summary on Excel sheet
108 Incidents; four mines. Note that if the incident involved several different toxic materials, the number is duplicated for each material
Records for BHP 1990 - 2012
Summary on Excel sheet
43 Incidents; two mines. Note that if the incident involved several different toxic materials, the number is duplicated for each material
Records for Cyprus 1990 - 1999 (sold to PD in 1999)
Summary on Excel sheet
55 Incidents; four mines. Note that if the incident involved several different toxic materials, the number is duplicated for each material
Records for Phelps Dodge (PD) 1990 - 2008 (Sold to FM in 2008)
Summary on Excel sheet
98 Incidents; four mines. Note that if the incident involved several different toxic materials, the number is duplicated for each material
Records for Freeport-McMoran (FM) 2008 - 2012
Summary on Excel sheet
24 Incidents; four mines. Note that if the incident involved several different toxic materials, the number is duplicated for each material
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Analysis of Incidents:
89 incidents were attributed to Natural Phenomenon, such heavy rains, winds or frozen pipelines.
6 incidents occured on railroad:
ASARCO = 4 incidents, releasing sulfuric acid (2), arsenic acid, lead sulfide to the soil and atmosphere
Phelps Dodge = 2 incidents , releasing sulfuric acid
The NRC Website: Link NRC Data Base Query Form*
*Hints on how to use the NRC data base:
The dates must be entered with the special format by clicking the day on the calendar
Under "Type of call", choose "Incident"
The company name under "suspected responsible company" must be entered,
or you will get all records from everywhere
You can save to a Excel spreadsheet with a button at the top left of the records
The Excel sheet will squeeze the data, but you can the whole record read-out at the top of the page when you put the pointer over the record box.