Mine Waste and Tailings Conference

Drone video has been used successfully for the past two years for weekly surveillance of tailings storage facilities (TSFs) under construction/operation at remote sites in the Philippines as part of an overall technical review role for the projects. This role includes full-time technical support by in-country personnel with an annual in-person field inspection by senior personnel from Australia and/or Canada. The videos are taken by mine technicians under the direction of site engineers. Technical details of the TSF construction/monitoring are then reviewed by the site team with off-site senior engineers in a weekly Teams meeting. 

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Authors: 

• David Brett - Senior Technical Director

• Farzad Daliri - Senior Tailings Engineer

• Jeffrey Belen - Civil Engineer

The emergency operation, in response to a failure of a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) is often a multi-disciplinary, multi-organisational operation, impacting multiple jurisdictions. This paper elaborates on the concept of “principal duties and timescales” applicable to an emergency, and the importance of defining and communicating a Strategic Intent. A model is presented for an advantageous Strategic Intent and how to apply it.

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Author: 

• Olle Wennstrom - Technical Director Crisis and Emergency Management

The tailings deposition management plan (TDMP) provides the methodology for optimal deposition of tailings slurry. It forms an integral part of the design of a tailings storage facility (TSF). This paper focuses on subaerial (air-dried) tailings deposition, which is extensively utilised within Australia.

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Author: 

• Bob Batchelder - Senior Technical Director – Tailings and Mine Water Management Dams

Coal processing plants generate a large volume of tailings containing fine and colloidal particles. The most conventional method for coal waste disposal is using tailing storage facilities (TSFs). Tailings dam failures have always been a serious environmental threat to the contamination of surface and groundwater. Moreover, mine tailings disposal imposes additional cost to mining companies. Sustainable alternative proposals for coal tailings disposal in tailings dams include mechanical dewatering methods such as coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation, followed by filtration. Efficient selection of flocculants is an important factor in this process.

In this study, mono flocculation experiments were conducted using various polyacrylamide (PAM) based flocculants with different molecular weight and charge type to evaluate the effect of molecular weight on settling rate and turbidity 

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Authors:

• Atousa Khazaie - Junior Engineer

• Sarah Gilmour - Geochemist and Geologist

The water quality and ecology in the Savage River located on the north west coast of Tasmania has previously suffered due to historical mining operations from past operators as a result of  legacy mine waste rock and tailings storage facilities contributing significant acid and metalliferous drainage to the receiving environment. A series of projects jointly run by the current owners Grange Resources and the government have resulted in synergies and net positive benefits using the current mine operations to manage and remediate legacy mining issues. 

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Author:

• Edgar Salas - Technical Director – Geotechnical Engineering

Alternative tailings disposal methods have gained much attention due to their advantages over conventional slurry tailings storage facilities. Co-disposal of tailings and mine waste rock is one of the leading methods of alternative disposal methods. However, application of this technology has been mostly limited to small-scale and research projects until recently.

This paper discusses the use of co-disposal technology in a large-scale mining project in Western Australia.

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Authors:

• Ajitha Wanninayake - Technical Director – Tailings

• Tyler Dixon - Senior Tailings and Dams Engineer

The Main Creek Tailings Dam (MCTD) located at Grange Resources Savage River Mine is nearing capacity and is currently transitioning from operations to closure. The MCTD is an upstream-constructed facility with a maximum height of 83m. The tailings stored in the MCTD are potentially acid forming and therefore the closure design required a combination of a water and soil cover to limit oxygen ingress to the tailings to prevent acid and metalliferous drainage occurring in the long term. The design and construction of the cover are discussed in the paper.

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Author:

• Clem Cahill - Civil Engineer

• Rob Longey - Technical Director - Tailings and Mine Rehabilitation, Service Line Leader – Tailings