Heavy metals, such as zinc, copper, iron and lead, are often found in the suspended particulate matter or dust produced around open or surface coal mines. They can cause respiratory diseases in humans, as well as the destruction of the surrounding plant life. These metals are also found in wastewater from underground coal mining operations and end up in lakes and rivers, causing damage to the aquatic life.
Suspended particulate matter or dust is often a product of open or surface coal mines. Coal mine dusts contain many pollutant substances, including mineral dusts, such as coal, asbestos and limestone. Although asbestos is not present in all mines, this toxic mineral is linked to cancer, asbestosis, a chronic lung inflammation, as well as other serious conditions.
Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and methane are the main gaseous pollutants liberated during coal mining operations, such as drilling and blasting. While methane is a well-known greenhouse gas, which contributes to the global warming phenomenon, sulfur and nitrogen compounds mixed with water vapor in the atmosphere causes acid rain, which negatively affects vulnerable aquatic ecosystems.
Coal mining operations rely on heavy machinery, which are generally diesel-powered, and release high quantity of fumes into the atmosphere. In addition to the oil fumes, the old practice of blast mining, still performed in small scales in the U.S. and other countries, uses explosives such as dynamite to break the coal, also generating pollutant fumes.