Risk management |
Safety first for zero failures
Mining continues to play an important role in many communities around the globe, but any failure has the potential to cause catastrophic and long-lasting impacts to water quality, aquatic life and human health. To start on the path to zero failures, tailings facility inventories need to be reduced with the adoption of best available practices and technologies. Suzanne Pritchard reports on recent developments in the Canadian province of British Columbia where there is growing pressure to address the risks posed by tailings dams in the face of climate change
Right: Mineral tailings mud after dam rupture in Córrego do Feijão, Brazil in 2019. The tailings dam at the mining facility were built using the upstream construction method. Upstream dams are known to have higher rates of stability issues and are susceptible to failure by liquefaction
“THE SAFEST TAILINGS DAM is the one that is not built. And if built, without perpetual oversight, the failure of a tailings dam is inevitable.” These stark remarks were made in the recent publication of Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management which was written by Earthworks, MiningWatch Canada and the London Mining Network, amongst others. The report goes on to add that at present, industry
standards and governmental regulations “do not go far enough” to adequately protect communities and ecosystems from tailings failures. Indeed, the design, construction, operation and closure of tailings facilities still require significant changes to protect people and the environment.
“Operating companies must commit to making safety the primary consideration in tailings facilities and dam design, construction, operation, closure and post- closure,” the authors state, adding that “the primacy of safety must be independently verified” and that a culture of safety and responsibility “must be upheld at
34 | November 2022 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
the highest level within a corporation”. To understand how and why failures occur, the authors of this report stress that “we must understand the scope of the issue”. “A global inventory of the thousands of active and abandoned tailings disposal facilities does not exist, nor is there a complete registry of tailings dam failures,” according to the report. “Compiling and sharing this information, publicly and transparently, is essential. An independent international agency, such as a United Nations endorsed agency, in collaboration with civil society, states, and operating companies, must drive the process to collect information on tailings dams and tailings dam failures worldwide, and share it with the public to reduce the risks associated with these sites and promote the protection of human health and the environment.”
Driving risk
Independent assessment and transparency have been called for in relation to tailings management
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