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. 2017 May 26;14(6):561.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph14060561.

Lithium in the Natural Waters of the South East of Ireland

Laurence Kavanagh  1 , Jerome Keohane  2 , John Cleary  3 , Guiomar Garcia Cabellos  4 , Andrew Lloyd  5
Affiliations

Lithium in the Natural Waters of the South East of Ireland

Laurence Kavanagh et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The South East of Ireland (County Carlow) contains a deposit of the valuable lithium-bearing mineral spodumene (LiAl(SiO₃)₂). This resource has recently attracted interest and abstractive mining in the area is a possibility for the future. The open cast mining of this resource could represent a potential hazard in the form of metalliferous pollution to local water. The population of County Carlow is just under 60,000. The local authority reports that approximately 75.7% of the population's publicly supplied drinking water is abstracted from surface water and 11.6% from groundwater. In total, 12.7% of the population abstract their water from private groundwater wells. Any potential entry of extraneous metals into the area's natural waters will have implications for people in county Carlow. It is the goal of this paper to establish background concentrations of lithium and other metals in the natural waters prior to any mining activity. Our sampling protocol totaled 115 sites along five sampling transects, sampled through 2015. From this dataset, we report a background concentration of dissolved lithium in the natural waters of County Carlow, surface water at x ¯ = 0.02, SD = 0.02 ranging from 0 to 0.091 mg/L and groundwater at x ¯ = 0.023, SD = 0.02 mg/L ranging from 0 to 0.097 mg/L.

Keywords: groundwater; lithium; mining; surface-water.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of Co. Carlow, showing land use. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Map of Co. Carlow, showing locations of transect sampling lines. Image modified from [32,33]. SW: both surface; GW: groundwater.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Map of Co. Carlow, showing bedrock geology, transect sampling lines, areas of interest and approximate sampling point locations. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Histogram of SW and GW lithium concentration data. X-axis units are the logarithmic transformed mg/L data and Y-axis units are frequency. (n = 460 samples).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Map of Co. Carlow, showing lithium distribution levels in mg/L. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 6
Figure 6
Boxplots of SW and GW lithium concentration data for each month. X-axis units represent months sampled and Y-axis units are mg/L lithium (n = 35 SW and n = 80 GW samples for each month).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Boxplots of SW and GW potassium concentration data for each month. X-axis units represent months sampled and Y-axis units are mg/L potassium (n = 35 SW and n = 80 GW samples for each month).
Figure 8
Figure 8
Map of Co. Carlow, showing potassium distribution levels in mg/L. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 9
Figure 9
Boxplots of SW and GW sodium concentration data for each month. X-axis represents months sampled and Y-axis units are mg/L Sodium (n = 35 SW and n = 80 GW samples for each month).
Figure 10
Figure 10
Map of Co. Carlow, showing sodium distribution levels in mg/L. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 11
Figure 11
Map of Co. Carlow, showing the sodium to lithium distribution ratio in GW and SW, units mg/L. Image modified from [32,33].
Figure 12
Figure 12
Boxplots of SW and GW lithium concentration data for each transect. X-axis represents the sampling transects and Y-axis units are mg/L Lithium (n = 35 SW and n = 80 GW samples for each month).
Figure 13
Figure 13
Bedrock geology map of Ireland and county Carlow showing general location of lithium bearing pegmatites. Image modified from [33].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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