Wheal Maid (also Wheal Maiden) is a former mine in the Camborne-Redruth-St Day Mining District, 1.5 km east of

St Day St Day ( kw, Sen Day) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated between the village of Chacewater and the town of Redruth. The electoral ward St Day and Lanner, Cornwall, Lanner ...

. Between 1800 and 1840, profits are said to have been up to £200,000. In 1852, the mine was amalgamated with

Poldice Mine Poldice mine is a former metalliferous mine located in Poldice Valley in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated near the hamlet of Todpool, between the villages of Twelveheads and St Day, three miles (5 km) east of Red ...

and Carharrack Mine and worked as St Day United mine. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the mine site was turned into large lagoons and used as a tip for two other nearby mines: Mount Wellington and

Wheal Jane Wheal Jane is a disused tin mine near Baldhu and Chacewater in West Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The area itself consisted of a large number of mines. History Wheal Jane was probably seriously worked for tin from the mid-18th century. ...

. There were suggestions that the mine could be used as a

landfill site A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

for rubbish imported from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and a

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...

that would produce up to 40

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

s of electricity; the concept was opposed by local residents and by

Cornwall County Council Cornwall County Council ( kw, Konteth Konsel Kernow) was the county council of the non-metropolitan county of Cornwall in south west England. It came into its powers on 1 April 1889 and was abolished on 1 April 2009. History Cornwall County Counc ...

, with Doris Ansari, the chair of the council's planning committee, saying that the idea " idnot seem right for Cornwall". The site was bought from Carnon Enterprises by Gwennap District Council for a price of £1 in 2002. An investigation by the Environment Agency that concluded in 2007 found that soil near the mine had high levels of

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

contamination and by 2012, it was deemed too hazardous for human activity. The mine gains attention during dry spells when the lagoons dry up and leaving brightly coloured stains on the pit banks and bed.

2014 murder

In 2014, a 72-year-old man from Falmouth died at the site after what was initially thought to be a cycling accident. It was later found that the man had been murdered. A 34-year-old was found guilty and sentenced to

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

and to serve at least 28 years.

References

{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Mines in Cornwall Pollution in the United Kingdom Soil contamination 2014 murders in the United Kingdom