Montana: Acid Rock Drainage Monitoring

Schafer & Associates of Bozeman, Montana are using Campbell Scientific instrumentation to monitor the performance of Acid Rock Drainage (ARD) caps. ARD occurs when water and oxygen react with waste rock from hard rock metal mining. One solution for preventing ARD is to cap waste rock with soil and vegetation. To characterize water content and temperature changes, sensors are installed along a vertical profile within the cap and underlying waste rock. A surface weather station is normally installed to monitor conditions, which can impact the cap performance.