Environmental impact of active and abandoned mines and metal smelters in Slovenia

• Main Authors: Tomaž Budkovič, Robert Šajn, Mateja Gosar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Geological Survey of Slovenia 2003-06-01
• Series: Geologija
• Subjects: mining; metals; pollution; geochemistry; Slovenia
• Online Access: http://www.geologija-revija.si/dokument.aspx?id=583

Slovenia has long been known for its numerous mines and ore processing. From the times of the Roman Empire to now, 49 mines and open pits were opened, four of them were large (Idrija, Mežica – Topla, Litija and Žirovski vrh). There were also 25 oreprocessing plants and smelters, which were operating mostly in the vicinity of larger mines (Idrija, Žerjav, Celje). Due to the lack of written sources, we probably haven succeeded in making a complete list of them. There were 33 iron works operating in the vicinity ofmines and open pits, three large ones have further developed and are still operating (Jesenice, Ravne na Koroškem and Štore). As the ore processing capacities have far exceeded the capacities of the Slovenian mining, ore has long been imported and only processed in Slovenia. On the basis of the results of our investigations in the vicinity of larger mines and smelters we estimated that in Slovenia the areas in which critical limit for heavy metal content is exceeded sums up to about 80 km2.