Chemical and radioactive contamination of surface waters in the Polish-Czech border area

Region of Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) is located in the border area of two countries: Poland and Czech. In Poland USBC mainly belong to Silesian Voivodship, while in the Czech Republic it is placed in Moravian - Silesian county with capital city of the region in Ostrava. Extensive mining activity on the both side on border is carried out since XVII century. Nowadays, in Poland are 30 coal mines and in the Czech Republic 3 mines are in operation. Conducting exploitation over so vast area and at the deep excavation increase the water inflow from surrounding rock mass into underground workings. Inflow water is usually discharged by means of dewatering system to surface water. Amount and mineral composition inflow waters strictly depends on natural conditions prevailing in the mine i.e. the depth, type of rock surrounding the workings. Formation waters from coal mines have very often high level of mineralization, contain high concentration of various ions. The most significant ones are: Na + , K + , Mg 2+ , Ca 2+ , Ba 2+ and anions: Cl - , SO 4 2- , HCO 3 2- . In formation waters also natural radionuclides could be present, where dominant are radium isotopes: 226 Ra and 228 Ra. In general, a tendency could be noticed as the depth of exploited coal seams increase, the mineralization and ions concentration also increases. In the paper, results for monitoring of selected ions and radionuclides are presented. Monitoring included concentration of different elements in formation waters discharged from coal mines as well as surface waters sampled from rivers or streams in the discharge points.