Water management at Asia Energy’s proposed open pit coal mine at Phulbari in Dinajpur will ensure plentiful fresh water supplies for the surrounding countryside and urban areas. Asia Energy says it is committed to ensuring that there is abundant water for every household and for every farmer throughout the life of the Phulbari Coal Mine and afterwards, and this article reports on how the company plans to keep the water flowing in the area while it extracts the coal from the 572 million tons resource.

Dewatering to Make the Mine Safe
Asia Energy will need to draw water down to maintain good working conditions in the pit. This will require dewatering - continuous pumping of water in the nearby vicinity of the mine pit. Asia Energy will start by installing some 58 pumps around the initial box-cut - the area where the open cut mine will begin. Eventually, when the mine is fully operational and producing its target of 15 million tons of coal a year, the company will have more than double that number of pumps. Asia Energy will then be pumping out at an average rate of 6,000 liters of water per second.

Water for Everyone
This means there will be more than enough water for everyone every day of the year, both for irrigation and household purposes. Asia Energy will re-inject a lot of the water back into the aquifer - up to five kilometers from the actual pit to help recharge the aquifer and control land settlement. There are plans to install injection bores and infiltration trenches to make this possible. Some water will also flow off into the Little Jamuna River and enough water will be fed into the Ashoorar Beel to maintain its healthy natural state and biodiversity.

250 Kilometers of Water Pipes
Asia Energy’s plans for supplying water to the villages, farms and Phulbari Township include laying more than 250 kilometers of underground water pipes. This will be an efficient way of delivering fresh water to people in the drawdown impact zone in the vicinity of the mine.

Irrigation: More Crops and Crop Diversification
Irrigation for farms in the dry season will also be maintained through pipe systems and by pumping water from diversion channels and from the existing watercourses. Deep tubewells will be bored to the base of the aquifer in other areas, further from the mine. The mine water balance assumes six months of irrigation activity, thus allowing water for a third annual crop. With irrigation water available in all seasons, there will be more diversity in crops and more cash crops.

Water Management Plan
To achieve all of this, Asia Energy has drawn up a comprehensive Water Management Plan, and the company is now in the detailed design stage. Asia Energy is budgeting to spend more than US$50 million on the re-injection and irrigation. For water supplies to town and villages alone Asia Energy is budgeting US$5 million.

“Asia Energy’s water management strategies will be implemented to world best standards,” said Dr Len Drury, Asia Energy’s Water Resources Manager. “The company has the technical skills and commitment to deal with the various water aspects of the project and its incumbent technical and environmental risks.”
Diversion of the Khari Pul River

An 11-kilometre stretch of this small creek will be diverted around the mine site to remove the watercourse from the middle of the pit and to ensure continued flow to the Ashoorar Beel. The 14.4 kilometre diversion will go around the eastern edge of the mine footprint. Additional water will be added as required to maintain the environmental integrity of the wetlands.

Engaging Locals in Water Management
In keeping with promises to employ as many local contractors as possible, Asia Energy has already signed a contract for the de-watering drilling with a Bangladeshi company. The town and village supply and irrigation contracts will also go to local firms.

“The drilling and pump installation contract with Falgu Sandhani is in line with our commitment to employ as many local people and contractors as possible on the Phulbari Coal Project,” Gary Lye, Asia Energy’s CEO Bangladesh, told a recent seminar on ‘Water Management of Asia Energy’s Phulbari Coal Project’ organized by IUCN-Bangladesh.

“There will be no shortage of water at any stage during the life of this mine,” said Mr Lye. “In fact, quite the contrary, the water we draw out to maintain good working conditions in the pit will produce a local surplus.”

Water Pollution Control Management
A Water Management Plan has been developed. The overall philosophy is the preferential release of clean water for direct external use and to re-use treated water on-site for mining purposes. Water released from the mine site will conform to water quality discharge standards. The on-site Water Management Plan envisages an in-pit water collection pumping system to remove groundwater seepage and rainfall runoff to treatment/storage ponds, and water runoff collection from disturbed surface works areas (such as haul roads, ex-pit overburden dump, mine service areas) to detention and sediment basins. Sewage, acid mine drainage (AMD) and industrial liquid waste will be treated on-site to remove contaminants and will be re-used for mine purposes (dust suppression, plant wash-down, landscape and rehabilitation, coal washery and fire fighting).

Acid Mine Drainage Management
Encapsulation of AMD materials is common in coal mining operations. With the implementation of standard mitigation measures, it is considered unlikely that AMD will occur. The design of leachate capture from the overburden dumps is being finalized.

No Aridity and No Desertification
Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities. The causes of land degradation are mainly human activity and agriculture related.

Desertification will not occur due to the Phulbari Coal Project. Phulbari is not located in an arid to semi-arid environment. Land clearing and deforestation will temporarily occur but will be progressively replaced by nutrient enriched topsoil and 1,946 hectares of forest. Low salinity irrigation water will be supplied to agricultural land and the Madhupur Clay will support vegetation during the dry season.

No Arsenic Problem
Groundwater samples have been collected in 66 holes within 20 kilometers of the mine. Arsenic analysis was below laboratory detection limit of 0.05mg/L. There will be no arsenic problem from water extraction for the Project.

Widely Practiced elsewhere in the World
All the components of the proposed water management at the Phulbari mine are widely practiced around the world and are proven to work efficiently and safely. There is nothing technically challenging nor anything new about what will happen at Phulbari.

“Each water related issue is standard practice,” Dr Drury told the IUCN workshop. “There are no untested techniques being introduced. There will be water available to villages, Phulbari Township and farmers at no additional cost. Desertification will not occur. There will be no permanent water level drawdown and no degradation in regional water quality.”

Green & Fertile Land
The land around the mine will remain green and fertile while the land filled in and rehabilitated after mining will be put back to productive and agricultural use. When mining is complete, there will be a fresh water lake left behind in the south of the mine as a potential source of water for irrigation, recreation and even town water supply, and throughout the area the aquifer will be gradually restored to its natural levels.