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Supervising Scientist Division

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    • Alligator Rivers Region
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  • Environmental monitoring
    • Ranger - Magela chemical data
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    • Uranium mining in the ARR
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Full report

• SSR110 - Procedures for the biological toxicity testing of mine waste waters using freshwater organisms (PDF 3.4 MB)

Separate sections

• Preliminary pages and Chapter 1 (PDF - 626 KB)
• Chapters 2 - 4 (PDF - 1,267 KB)
• Chapters 5-7 and references (PDF - 1,525 KB)

Abstract

The protection of the environment is of great concern in the Alligator Rivers Region because within its boundary lies a unique wilderness area of national and international importance. Also within the Region are deposits of uranium-bearing ore, as well as other metal-ore deposits. The mining of these ores may necessitate, at some stage in the history of the mining operations, a release of excess mine waste water into local river systems due to the very seasonal nature of the rainfall of the wet/dry tropics. There is, therefore, a need to determine at what concentration the mine waste waters could be released without any adverse effects on the biota being observed. At first, this was based on chemical criteria but the need to account for synergistic, additive or even antagonistic effects of the waste water entering the local waterways is better evaluated using biological toxicity tests. Biological toxicity tests were, therefore, developed using local aquatic species from different trophic levels and phyla, and with various endpoints. The biological toxicity tests described are those tests that are used routinely by this laboratory on actual waste water diluted with the receiving water. The tests are for two species of hydra (Hydra viridissima and H. vulgaris) using either survival or reproduction as the endpoint, a water flea (Moinodaphnia macleayi) using either survival or reproduction as the endpoint, and a fish embryo/larva (Mogurnda mogurnda) with hatchability and survival as endpoints. The rationale for the statistical methods that are used is also given.