Blasting standards for the Ghanaian mining industry

Abstract

Ghana is a well known mining nation and hard rock mining has been going on since the 10th century. Mining companies in Ghana are well aware of the regulatory requirements to carry out blasting activities such that neighbouring communities are protected from excessive impact as a result of blast vibrations amongst other known blast impacts. However in the absence local blasting standards in respect of ground vibrations companies are compelled to import standards from their country of origin or from some other sources. Communities continue to complain of cracks in their house as efforts by companies have not produced the desired results. This paper studied the building types in the mining communities and determined threshold levels for ground vibrations based on crack monitoring activities carried out on some structures within the communities. The results revealed that much lower ground vibration levels than those currently adopted were required to protect the type of structures prevalent in the mining communities. The paper makes some recommendation for best practice.