Bezpieczeństwo Pracy i Ochrona Środowiska w Górnictwie Number 05/2023

In the final termination stage of the old mining, areas has been closed with the approval of the authorities. The mining authority does not have right to issue new permit regulations to areas where there are no valid concessions. The rights are restricted on monitoring previously issued regulations only. In summary it can be stated that the mining law of different times has not very exactly taken into consideration the responsibility questions of the mining companies after termination of mining activities. Open question still is that the continuity of responsibility after termination is not defined in mining law. The main rule has been that the responsibility of these areas belongs to the mining companies. This has come true in many cases, but not always. Especially when this property has been sold to private person, these responsibility questions have not always followed as a written bill of sale. In these kinds of cases the responsibility questions disappear.

Mining supervision authorities provide information on their activities pursuant to the Act on Access to Public Information and specific acts. The provisions guarantee access to this information to everyone through official publications, especially the online Public Information Bulletin, and by way of responding to individual requests. Public information is everything that is directly related to the activities of public authorities and entities performing public tasks, excluding internal working documents and strictly personal information. The most important role is played by access to official documents, including decisions in administrative and court proceedings. A distinction is made between simple information, generated as part of the tasks performed, and processed information, developed on the basis of simple information in cases of particular importance for the public interest. The provisions may specify different rules for disclosing public information depending on its subject (e.g. in the case of files of proceedings, recruitment for positions in the civil service or information on the environment) and may introduce restrictions on access to this information (e.g. due to legally protected secrets or personal privacy). Obtaining public information does not require the applicant to meet complicated requirements, it should take place immediately or within the time limits provided for by law. Refusal or failure to provide information is subject to administrative and judicial review and may result in administrative and criminal sanctions. Abuse of the right to public information, obtained contrary to its purpose, allows for refusal to disclose it.

A threat to the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine is posed by extra-deposit waters in the Chodenice beds - especially at the northern border of the deposit, repeatedly affected by mining works (e.g. the Mina corridor). Zones of cracks and caverns can lead from them to the mine significant amounts of water undersaturated with NaCl. The uncontrolled inflow of such waters to the “Mina” corridor from 1992 indirectly contributed to the end of salt exploitation and the focus on tourist services and the liquidation of excavations. The outflow reached its maximum in the autumn of 1992, when the surface of the land in the outskirts of the corridor was also destroyed. Securing the Mina was first carried out by lowering the hydrostatic pressure in the rock mass by taking in the inflowing brine. In 2007, a decision was made to close the corridor tightly, which carried the risk of pressure increase behind the dam, migration of undersaturated brine to other mine excavations and leaching of the rock mass. Therefore, in 2008, the President of the State Mining Authority appointed a Committee for issuing opinions on the state of water and collapse hazards in KS “Wieliczka”, which formulated a number of recommendations. Experiences related to the elimination of the threat in the Mina corridor were extended to other excavations at risk. The risk reduction began with the liquidation of the Gussmann and Kosocice drifts in the area of W VI-6 and W VI-32 leaks in Z-28 and Z-32 chambers. Monitoring of the water table in the area of these leaks, as well as in the area of W VII-16 leak (i.e. the three largest inflows to the mine) showed the existence of two aquifers in the Chodenice beds: upper, well-permeable (piezometers PZ-1 and PZ-2), and lower, poorly permeable (PZ-3 hole). As part of the fight against natural hazards, approx. 83% of the chambers indicated by the Commission at the northern boundary of the deposit have been backfilled to date. At the same time, observations of delamination of roof and sidewall rocks and convergence measurements are carried out. In a number of excavations, the rock mass is anchored and cribs are built. Measurement results and observations in excavations do not show significant changes. Convergence measurements showed its low intensity in most of the excavations of the lump deposit, and its increased intensity only in the bedded deposit. No significant changes were found in the condition of the chambers which could potentially collapse. In B-3 and W-1 wells, the water table in the northern outskirts of the deposit is also recovering. Thus, the actions indicated by the State Mining Authority’s Commission led to the reduction of the water hazard and the related collapse hazard in the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine.