PASTE & TAILINGS 2020
‘Extreme’ classification criteria
every five years for facilities
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[must be] maintained throughout
classified as Very High or
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the tailings facility lifecycle.” For
existing facilities that do not have
the ability to be upgraded to
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Extreme, and at least every 10
years for all other facilities.
The DSR includes governance
Responsible • Accountable for the integrity of the tailings facility (Requirement 8.5).
Extreme, the Engineer of Record
and operational aspects, as
Tailings • Responsible for liaising with EOR, operations, planning, regulatory
(EOR), with review by the Internal Facility affairs, social performance and environment teams (Requirement 8.5). well as technical review of the
Technical Review Board (ITRB) or a Engineer • Responsible for implementation of the design.
facility. Additionally, the DSR
senior independent technical (RTFE) • Accountable for the establishment of a change management system contractor (not just the
(Requirement 6.5).
reviewer, if they determine that the
individual engineer, but the
• Responsible for the monitoring system and communication of the
upgrade in design criteria is not
results to the EOR, including performance reviews (Requirements entire company) cannot
feasible or cannot be retroactively
7.2, 7.3).
conduct consecutive DSRs on
applied – “In this case, the
• Responsible, with the EOR, for the Construction Records Report the same facility.
(Requirement 6.3).
Accountable Executive shall
• Responsible for the OMS Manual (Requirement 6.4).
These DSRs are in addition
approve and document the
implementation of measures to
reduce both the probability and the
Engineer of
Record (EoR)
• Responsible for the Design Basis Report (Requirement 4.8).
• Responsible for the design (Requirement 9.1).
• Responsible for the design report.
to the annual (or more
frequent) reviews by the EOR,
internal audits, regular
• Responsible for construction and performance reviews
consequences of a tailings facility
reviews of the management
(Requirement 10.4).
failure in order to reduce the risk to
• Responsible for the Deviance Accountability Report (Requirement 6.5). systems (every three years for
a level as low as reasonably
• Responsible, with the RTFE, for the Construction Records Report High, Very High and Extreme)
practicable (ALARP).” This is a
(Requirement 6.3).
and multi-disciplinary risk
• Support the RTFE on the OMS Manual (Requirement 6.4).
protective measure for future
assessments that are done at
Accountable • Accountable for the safety of the tailings facility and for environmental
community development near a
Executive and social performance (Requirements 7.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4).
a minimum of every three
mine. A mine site that is isolated at
the start of a project may develop a
• Approval of the adopted design criteria and measures to reduce the
risk of failure of existing facilities to ALARP (Requirements 4.3, 4.7, 5.7).
years. It will be imperative that
consultants and engineering
• Accountable for tailings management training, emergency
substantial population downstream
companies carefully track their
preparedness and response (Requirement 8.4).
of the tailings dam after the project
• Selection of the RTFE (Requirements 8.5, 8.6) and the EOR
previous DSRs and identify
site has been selected. The
(Requirements 9.1 to 9.5, 8.6).
potential conflicts of interest
successful implementation of this
• Appointment of the ITRB or a senior independent technical reviewer when taking on this type of
(Requirement 8.7).
standard will require diligent
work because they must
• Establishment of a process for addressing concerns
attention, by all parties, and
(Requirement 12.1).
certify in writing that they
frequent assessment of the risks to
maintain the level of transparency
Independent
Tailings
• Review of the design, construction, risk assessments, governance
systems and other risk management matters that can affect the
“follow best practices for
engineers in avoiding conflicts
envisioned by the Standard.
Review tailings facility, ensuring that the required expertise and skill sets are
of interest.”
Board (ITRB) involved.
or senior • Review of the adopted external loading design criteria and
What does the Standard
What are the key roles technical measures to reduce the risk of failure of existing facilities to ALARP mean for the industry?
described in the Standard? reviewer (Requirements 4.2, 4.7, 5.7).
This is an exciting time for
• Review of the alternatives analysis (Requirement 3.2), design,
Table 4 summarises the key roles
the mining industry and the
construction, risk assessments (Requirements 10.1), governance
and functions mentioned in the
systems and other risk management matters (Requirement 10.6) that engineers and operators who
standard. Requirement 9.1 of the
can affect the tailings facility.
contribute to the tailings
Standard explains that the owner
• Review the Design Basis Report (Requirement 4.8).
practice. The bar has clearly
• Determine the frequency of Dam Safety Review (Requirement 10.5).
should engage an engineering firm
been set high by the coconveners
with expertise and experience in
the design and construction of
Table 4: Summary of Key Roles and Functions mentioned in the Standard
of the Global
Tailings Review in an effort to
tailings facilities of comparable complexity. This
is different from some previous debates within
the industry about whether the EOR should be
defined as a person or a company. The Standard
defines the EOR representative as a “senior
engineer, approved by the Operator, to represent
the firm as the EOR, and verify that the individual
has the necessary experience, skills and time to
fulfill this role.”
No specific requirements for engineering
discipline, degree, or number of years of
experience have been provided. The Standard
also states that “alternatively, the Operator may
appoint an in-house engineer with expertise and
experience in comparable facilities as the EOR
and the EOR may delegate the design to a firm
(‘Designer of Record’).” We know that this model
is common practice in some regions, such as the
Alberta oil sands. It is clear that some flexibility
has been built into the Standard to maintain the
status-quo of some areas and regions. For
example, the Standard also states that “in some
highly-regulated jurisdictions, notably Japan, the
role of EOR is undertaken by the responsible
regulatory authorities.”
Frequent reviews are a recurring theme in the
Standard, and there is a requirement for Dam
Safety Reviews (DSR) which may be new to some
projects. A DSR must be carried out by an
independent qualified review engineer to
evaluate the safety of a tailings facility against
failure modes, in order to make a statement of
safety of the facility. The requirement states that
an independent DSR must be conducted at least
protect people from being impacted by the
failures. The industry is doing good work and
needs to do better across the board to meet the
goal of zero harm. This Standard provides a great
framework, it can be fit-for purpose. The
industry’s technical experts will be stretched
thinner than ever before in order to meet the
oncoming tidal wave of demand. IM
The Standard is available on the Global Tailings
Review website: https://globaltailingsreview.
org/global-industry-standard/.
*Amanda Adams is a Principal Tailings Engineer
and Project Manager at Stantec. She is based in
Denver, Colorado and can be reached at
amanda.adams@stantec.com