Top line: Total Alcoa Bauxite Mining Bottom Line: Australia's Alcoa Bauxite Mining
The company is required under the Contaminated Sites Act to continually extract contaminated groundwater beneath the bauxite tailings to prevent the contamination from spreading.
This water was disposed of by using it in the refinery, where it evaporated.
With the refinery shut down, Alcoa now has permission to operate 37 giant sprinklers to spray thousands of tonnes of contaminated water an hour in a fine mist over the tailings, allowing some of it to evaporate.
Lol... ๐ฌ.. that doesn't sound great or a sustainable solution, even if only for the medium term.