Mining Water Use in Georgia, 2005
Large maps with county names:
Mining water use is water used for the extraction of minerals, including water used for quarrying, milling, and other typical preparations at a mine site. Granite, clay, marble, and other materials are mined extensively in the State, but these mining operations, other than clay, do not require large quantities
of water. Mining water-use estimates were provided by the USGS National Water-Use Program from mine production data for 2004 from the USGS Minerals Information Team and the Energy Information Administration and commodity-specific coefficients (J.K. Lovelace, U.S. Geological Survey, written commun., 2007). The total mining withdrawal estimate was allocated between ground and surface water using the ratio by county for mining withdrawals for 2000 (Fanning, 2003).
During 2005, the estimated mining withdrawal was about 49 Mgal/d. Nearly, 99 percent of the withdrawals for mining were from ground-water sources, and 1 percent were from surface-water sources.
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