Environmental aspects of underground space development in Kansas City, USA

Many countries in the world have been utilizing the- underground space for a variety of purposes. While most of such space, in other countries, is primarily used for storage purpose, the underground spaces in the Kansas City metropolitan area, in U.S.A., have been developed for human use and occupancy. With over 5.2 million sq m of developed space and over 2 000 personnel working at least 40 hours per week, Kansas City has the distinction of being the number one city in the world in terms of human use and occupancy of the subsurface space. Underground mining of limestone, which began at the end of the last century, is still going on. The conversion of abandoned mines into usable secondary space began in early 1950s. As a result of current mining activity, about 0.25 million sq m of new space is available each year. Uncontrolled mining techniques of the past coupled with weathering and erosion processes, have caused surface collapse following failures of mine roof. Other environmental problems relate to heaving of mine floors and shaking of surface structures and possible acid discharge from the underground sites. The details of these environmental problems are discussed in the paper. A brief discussion of history of underground mining and the geology of the area is also presented.