TAILINGS AND WASTE MANAGEMENT
Safer waste disposal is a must
Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident
his is the title of a new Rapid Response
Assessment from the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP). That
report includes the map of global tailings
accidents shown above – a worrying trend
emerges that “while the overall number of
failures has decreased, the number of serious
failures has increased in the last three
decades.”
The Rapid Response Assessment makes two
recommendations and suggests a range of
policy actions aimed at catalysing the change
needed to ensure tailings dam safety. These
actions stem from the first recommendation –
the mining industry’s acknowledged priority of
“safety first.”
T
Recommendation 1:
The approach to tailings storage facilities must
place safety first by making environmental and
human safety a priority in management actions
30 International Mining | JULY 2018
and on-the-ground operations. Regulators,
industry and communities should adopt a
shared zero-failure objective to tailings storage
facilities where “safety attributes should be
evaluated separately from economic
considerations, and cost should not be the
determining factor” (Mount Polley Expert Panel,
2015, p. 125).
Recommendation 2:
Establish a UN Environment stakeholder forum
to facilitate international strengthening of
tailings dam regulation.
Ligia Noronha, Director Economy Division,
UNEP, notes: “Despite many good intentions
and investments in improved practices, large
storage facilities, built to contain mine tailings
can leak or collapse. These incidents are even
more probable due to climate change effects.
When they occur, they can destroy entire
communities and livelihoods and remain the
biggest environmental disaster threat related to
mining.
“For decades, companies, industry bodies
and regulators have been continually improving
best practice guidelines for the construction and
management of tailings dams. However, eliminating
all catastrophic incidents remains a challenge.
“The UNEP Rapid Response Assessment on
mine tailings looks at why existing engineering
and technical knowhow to build and maintain
safe tailings storage facilities is insufficient to
meet the target of zero catastrophic incidents. It
examines the ways in which the established
best practice solutions in international
collaborative governance, enhanced regulations,
more resource efficient approaches and
innovation could help to ensure the elimination
of tailings dam failures. It uses case studies
from different parts of the world to highlight the
efforts of industry to reduce mine waste and
stimulate new activities while suggesting how
these could be accelerated through regulatory
or financial incentives.” IM