Water returned to the environment
Rio Tinto returned 627 gigalitres (GL) of water to the environment in 2005.
- Seventy five per cent of our operations return water to the environment.
- At some operations, water is managed to prevent its return to the environment under all, or specific, environmental conditions. This may be for the protection of local ecosystems and may also be a permit or regulatory requirement. For example, Coal & Allied's operations are managed in accordance with the Hunter River Salinity Trading Scheme. The scheme manages the total allowable discharge of saline water into the Hunter River by issuing dischargers' with tradeable salinity credits. At the same time, saline discharge opportunities are reliant on high river flow rates and low background salinity levels so that salinity targets are not exceeded.
Water returned to the environment: receiving environments (2005)
When water is returned to the environment it is potentially available for other uses. However, its quality can have effects on the environment and other users as it may contain metals and process chemicals. As with water withdrawal, there may be better measures that give an indication of the effect of returning water to the environment. At present, the discharge of potential contaminants and compliance with local regulatory limits for discharge are reported. The latter assumes that a risk based assessment has been used to derive permit limits which are appropriate for the receiving environment.
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