Mine Reclamation and Cover System Design Services

GSA has conducted mine reclamation closure studies at over twenty sites ranging from the Great Basin and Southwestern deserts in the United States to the Andean mountains of South America to tropical Papua New Guinea. GSA utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to mine reclamation projects through our expertise in ecological restoration, reclamation cover systems, and groundwater hydrology. GSA is also unique in that we operate an unsaturated flow laboratory that specializes in characterizing mine waste, heap leach, and cover system materials. We have developed advanced laboratory, field and modeling methods to predict unsaturated flow behavior in these rocky materials and apply this expertise to determining flow in heap leach materials, the effect of sloping cover systems, and changes in cover system hydraulic properties over time.