Production
- 6.1 million tonnes copper ore with 3.3% copper
- 4.6 million tonnes silver-lead-zinc ore wit 154g/t silver 5.4% lead 6,5% zinc (1986)
Smelter operations release sulfur dioxide emissions very close to the city of Mount Isa. The Mount Isa Mines Panel Assessment Study recently spent 4 years investigating the air quality and the effects on community health. The panel found no evidence of adverse effects from the mine. However, the panel did not report on emissions of lead and several other metals associated with sulphur dioxide emissions and which are known to have potentially severe environmental and health effects. Mount Isa Mines is currently the highest atmospheric emitter of sulphur dioxide, lead and several other metals in Australia. Other research has confirmed that there has been widespread contamination of soils with lead, copper and other metals in and around Mount Isa and that these contaminants are derived from both historic and ongoing smelter emissions and fugitive dust from Mount Isa Mines. Queensland Health reported in 2008 that the average blood lead concentration for children (1–4 years old) in Mount Isa was 5 microgram/dL and 11.3% exceeded 10 microgram/dL. In comparison, average blood lead in children from uncontaminated comparable urban areas is around 2 microgram/dL. Recent medical research has documented adverse health effects at blood lead concentrations above 5 microgram/dL and possibly down to as low as 2 microgram/dL.
Read more about this topic: Mount Isa Mines
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)