Highlight
- Vale has issued a level one emergency alert for three inactive tailings dams
- Decipher solves tech challenge for Rio Tinto
- Download this FREE guide to find out about the 57 major tailings dam failures (2000 – 2020)
- Are you ready for the next round of Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative reports? Watch this FREE webinar to learn more
“THE MOVE IS JUST A PREVENTIVE MEASURE UNTIL A TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURES IS COMPLETED” ValeIt did not expect any impact on its 2020 production plan, which has been forecast at between 310 and 330 million tonnes of iron ore. That projection, revised in April, considers as much as 15 million lost tonnes from eventual covid-19 impacts. The announcement is the latest in a series of emergency level protocols being activated for Vale dams, with the miner’s facilities under increased scrutiny since the Brumadinho tailings dam collapse in January 2019, which killed at least 270 people and caused widespread damage. The mining giant faces legal action over the incident, the deadliest in Brazil’s mining history, including allegations that Vale was aware of the dam’s unstable condition years before the accident happened. In January, state prosecutors charged Fabio Schvartsman, the chief executive at the time of the burst, and 15 other people with homicide. Schvartsman left his position at the company in March 2019. They also charged Vale and its German contractor, TUV SUD, with environmental crimes, as the burst dam unleashed an avalanche of muddy mining waste that polluted the nearby town of Brumadinho, water streams, and agricultural land.
Mounting pressure
In May, a Brazilian judge ordered the company to set aside 7.9 billion reais (about $1.5 billion) to pay potential fines related to last year’s disaster. The figure added to the 1 billion reais ($260m at the time) in frozen funds a federal court ordered Vale to pay affected communities shortly after the deadly incident.
Tailings in the spotlight
The tragic 2019 incident has triggered over the past year several criminal investigations, including a global inquiry into the status of 726 tailing dams. It has also put the safety of those structures under the microscope.
The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), a London-based industry group representing 27 major mining companies, formed an independent panel of experts in charge of developing global standards for tailings facilities.
The Church of England, which invests in mining companies through its pensions for retired clergy, along with its partners, launched a global inquiry in April 2019 into the mining waste storage systems of more than 700 resources companies.
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It now asks companies to disclose data on tailings dams on a regular basis.
Switzerland-based Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF) published a study in early April this year, showing that investor-led action had resulted in improved transparency regarding the state of such facilities.
The vast majority of miners, however, have yet to demonstrate they are reviewing how they effectively manage tailings-related risks.
The non-profit, funded by the Dutch and Swiss governments and some small philanthropic organizations, said that while a global standard on tailings management is a welcome initiative, it could be strengthened to become significant in terms of tailings safety.
How to prepare for the next round of Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative questions
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW-MwjxkHfM[/embedyt] Originally published by Mining.comEffectively monitor your tailings storage facility with Decipher
Decipher is designed to provide you with key data and insights, enabling you to effectively monitor your TSF and your environmental obligations and compliance. Our solution can be securely accessed by industry, regulators, designers and operators involved in the management of TSFs. Decipher offers a comprehensive and functionally rich solution which combines regulatory (Compliance Management Software), mining waste management, stakeholder engagement, environmental monitoring, and environmental management system (EMS) tools to assist with tailings management:
- View real-time data and receive exceedance alerts
- Monitor land movement with remote sensing and InSAR datasets
- Visualise real-time LiDAR data with insights into dam movement
- Securely store and access all of your tailings data in the one place
- Upload and reference key documentation
- Visualise facilities across multiple sites in a single screen on a geospatial map
- Monitor your facilities with InSAR, LiDAR, DEM and more
- Capture a wide range of monitoring data and indicators such as surface and groundwater, decant pond water levels and quality, and embankment conditions
- Capture and track obligations and conditions around your licence to operate to manage your key risks and actions
- Action and task delegation for data collection with reminders
- Maintain and track environmental monitoring compliance limits and exceedances
- Manage and engage with all of your stakeholders with one central repository
- Convert your engagements into actionable outcomes
- Forecast, plan and track your sites activities using IBM’s Weather data
- Create corporate report templates and meet requests for data provision from industry groups such as ICMM, Global Tailings Portal, PRI and UNEP
- Integration capability with third party systems or public portals such as the Global Tailings Portal
Watch this video to find out more
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