White Tip

Monitoring by the Environment Agency has shown that Snailbeach White Tip contributes about 25% of the zinc pollution to the Minsterley catchment, polluting Wood Farm Brook, Minsterley Brook and Rea Brook.

Snailbeach was mined for lead and zinc until the early 1900s, with small scale mining for barytes continuing up until the mid-1950s.

After closure, the tip was left largely as it was until Shropshire County Council undertook a reclamation scheme in the 1990s, primarily to address concerns over potential risks to human and animal health.

This involved re-profiling and capping the tip together with new drainage, including carrier and filter drains, settlement tanks and open ditches.

A buried French drain (a trench filled with clean gravel) has also been installed around the perimeter of the tip to collect seepage and directs it towards a small pond, constructed to settle out silt prior to discharge off the site.

To enable delivery of the statutory Environment Act metal mines target and the interim Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) target, we are developing a pilot-scale mine water treatment scheme at White Tip.

We aim to utilise the existing sediment trap pond and this will allow us to trial treatment approaches, gather performance data, and inform the design of a potential full-scale scheme.