Integrated assessment of the environmental hazard level of technologies of drilling and blasting operations with using emulsion explosives in quarries

Abstract

Purpose. Adaptation of the “unified method of quantitative and qualitative assessment of the level of environmental hazard of the operation of industrial enterprises, facilities and introduced technologies in the field of production and ecology” to the technologies of drilling and blasting operations in quarries for extraction of ore and nonmetallic materials with the use of various types of explosives. The methods. They are based on a heuristic evaluation of the impact of priority man-made factors of the technologies used according to the 4-point scale (0, 1, 2, 3), and then – of the complex level of their environmental hazard – according to the total 15-point scale, evenly divided into three qual-itative levels. Findings. The identification of types and sources of environmental hazard for natural environments (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, soils and biota) was performed when using emulsion and TNT-containing explosives during drilling and blasting operations in quarries. The intensity, perio-dicity and consequences of various accompanying man-made factors were taken as the criteria of influence of dangerous impact of technological processes on the condition of the above natural en-vironments. It was found that the integrated level of the environmental hazard of man-made impacts of drilling and blasting operations using emulsion explosives was 2.33, in other words, it was “low”. When using TNT-containing explosives it was 5.00, i.e. appeared on the boundary of the first and the second ranges, where the “low” hazard level changes to “moderate”. This is an evi-dence of a higher (more than 2 times) environmental efficiency of using emulsion explosives com-pared to the use of TNT-containing explosives. The originality. The system of identification and management of environmental and technology-related risks under conditions of extraction of ore and nonmetallic materials in quarries by the drill and blast method was proposed, whereupon an integrated assessment of the level of environmental hazard of mining enterprises is proposed to be defined as a sum of average grade points (for each of the man-made factors) according to quantitative-qualitative scale. Practical implications. The developed methods allow determining with a sufficient degree of reli-ability the level of environmental hazard of existing technologies of drilling and blasting operations and substantiating expediency of change-over to emulsion explosive materials.