Bezpieczeństwo Pracy i Ochrona Środowiska w Górnictwie Number 05/2019

The closure of mines results from the restructuring of the mining sector started in the 1990s. This is associated with the need to protect and archive mine survey and geological documentation, which includes complete information on mining activities. To preserve the knowledge included in mine survey and geological documentation for future users of post-mining areas, the President of the State Mining Authority established an Archive of Mine Survey and Geological Documentation 25 years ago. Its aim is to collect, protect, and archive documents from mines to be closed, as well as to prepare them to be made available. So far, the Archive has acquired a total of 584 fonds (133 of which from underground mines, and 451 from open-pit and borehole mines). As at the end of 2018, the Archive collected 24,316 archival units (single documents or collections of them), including cartographic documents. Some of them, especially those necessary to prepare information on geological and mining conditions in a post-mining area, were converted into electronic form. As at the end of 2018, a total of 12,722 applications for the provision of such information were processed. In 2018, the State Mining Authority – with financial support from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management – also became to make an inventory of previous excavations connected to the surface, which is part of the "Reduction of inconvenience caused by extraction" priority programme. As at the end of 2018, a total of 2,790 excavations of this type in Śląskie and Dolnośląskie Provinces were inventoried. Inventory results are stored at the Archive, while data on inventory results are used to prepare information on post-mining areas and made available to persons concerned.

Underground gas storages connected to the gas system of Poland are used to compensate for periodic and peak gas shortages, to allow the exploitation of gas deposits and the operation of the gas system to be optimised, and to store mandatory and strategic reserves. The storage function is also performed by an underground crude oil and fuel storage. Underground gas storages in depleted deposits, thus serving the purpose of compensating for seasonal gas shortages, are located in southern Poland: in Dolnośląskie, Małopolskie, and Podkarpackie Provinces. Underground gas storages in caverns, which compensate for peak gas shortages, are located in Kujawsko-Pomorskie and Pomorskie Provinces. The underground crude oil and fuel storage, which is integrated with a salt mine that provides brine necessary for the storage to be operated, is located in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Province. Underground hydrocarbon storages play a significant role in securing the energy security of Poland. Hence the need to ensure as large storage capacity as possible for natural gas, crude oil and its products. That is the objective of leading companies in the fuel sector.

Even after a long time, closed excavations for well mining (boreholes, wells) may pose a threat to structures erected nearby, especially when there is an exhalation and migration of natural gas after given land is handed over to its future users. That is why it is crucial to remove such exhalations and migrations effectively, followed by providing information about their locations, removal method, protection and potential dangers for competent local public authorities. Mining supervision authorities participate in spatial development at the stage of land development and management conditions, local spatial development plans, and opinions on land-use studies, which is limited to mining areas only. Mining supervision authorities do not, however, express their opinion on inactive mining areas or wells drilled outside such areas. Therefore, it is necessary to disseminate knowledge of how to obtain information about the location of such structures from mining entrepreneurs, mining supervision authorities, licensing authorities, and geodesic and cartographic documentation centres. It is also advisable to consider the possibility of obligatory entries in land documents (land and mortgage registers, land and property register) concerning mining structures erected near given land.