92
7 Let’s Start with Some Serious “Do Nots”!
requires, little guidance is provided for both the practitioner and those that need
to judge the level of commitment being applied. Again, as discussed in Chap. 6,
experience has shown that stakeholder involvement has helped identify the need for
more detail.
The bottom line is that existing self-identified good and best practices have failed
to identify the hazards and related risks that existed prior to recent catastrophic dam
failures and more progress is required. Furthermore, the more general the description
of a practice, the easier it is for the less committed to claim they have adopted it.
From another perspective, most industry standards, practices and guidelines can
lead to complacency and overconfidence without the application of a rigorous and
disciplined approach to risk assessment.
7.5.3 Closing Notes on Hazards
Factors of safety, industry standards, best practices, etc. are tools commonly used for
the design and operation of tailings dams. They can offer a perceived high degree
of protection against failure through the provision of high technical standards, fullydeveloped management systems and effective government oversight. Such contributions to risk reduction could be considered as strong barriers to failure or protective
factors. However, over many decades they have been shown to be inadequate to meet
the challenge and should not be accepted as the final answer. Their use can be compromised by the technical, management, regulatory and human hazards noted above,
which may or may not exceed the ability of the protective factors to prevent failure.
The challenge is to move industry thinking beyond the complacency and overconfidence that may be generated by claims that existing standards and regulations
have been applied. The mining industry must move beyond existing standards on a
case-by-case basis to ensure that all hazards have been identified, adequate protective
risk mitigation features have in fact been applied, and that a rigorous and disciplined
approach has been applied to the elimination of any negative human factors that may
exist.
Thus the proof is in the pudding. Unless risk assessor, geotechnical designers and
mining companies seriously change their approaches to risk, things will continue to
go on as they are today without notable improvements.
However, all believe their tailings designs and facilities are safe. In reality all
dams are not created equal and some have failed. As stated in (Freeze 2000):
The owners and operators of large engineering facilities want the public to hear about the
great benefits to be bestowed upon it by their facility, not about how likely it is to fall down,
or what the probability is that it will pollute the environment.
Note that, in the quote above, risk is implicitly mentioned, as the author spoke
about p f as “likely to fall down” and of a significantly censored C “probability it will
pollute the environment” reduced to one dimension. Indeed C generally has a very
7 Let’s Start with Some Serious “Do Nots”!
requires, little guidance is provided for both the practitioner and those that need
to judge the level of commitment being applied. Again, as discussed in Chap. 6,
experience has shown that stakeholder involvement has helped identify the need for
more detail.
The bottom line is that existing self-identified good and best practices have failed
to identify the hazards and related risks that existed prior to recent catastrophic dam
failures and more progress is required. Furthermore, the more general the description
of a practice, the easier it is for the less committed to claim they have adopted it.
From another perspective, most industry standards, practices and guidelines can
lead to complacency and overconfidence without the application of a rigorous and
disciplined approach to risk assessment.
7.5.3 Closing Notes on Hazards
Factors of safety, industry standards, best practices, etc. are tools commonly used for
the design and operation of tailings dams. They can offer a perceived high degree
of protection against failure through the provision of high technical standards, fullydeveloped management systems and effective government oversight. Such contributions to risk reduction could be considered as strong barriers to failure or protective
factors. However, over many decades they have been shown to be inadequate to meet
the challenge and should not be accepted as the final answer. Their use can be compromised by the technical, management, regulatory and human hazards noted above,
which may or may not exceed the ability of the protective factors to prevent failure.
The challenge is to move industry thinking beyond the complacency and overconfidence that may be generated by claims that existing standards and regulations
have been applied. The mining industry must move beyond existing standards on a
case-by-case basis to ensure that all hazards have been identified, adequate protective
risk mitigation features have in fact been applied, and that a rigorous and disciplined
approach has been applied to the elimination of any negative human factors that may
exist.
Thus the proof is in the pudding. Unless risk assessor, geotechnical designers and
mining companies seriously change their approaches to risk, things will continue to
go on as they are today without notable improvements.
However, all believe their tailings designs and facilities are safe. In reality all
dams are not created equal and some have failed. As stated in (Freeze 2000):
The owners and operators of large engineering facilities want the public to hear about the
great benefits to be bestowed upon it by their facility, not about how likely it is to fall down,
or what the probability is that it will pollute the environment.
Note that, in the quote above, risk is implicitly mentioned, as the author spoke
about p f as “likely to fall down” and of a significantly censored C “probability it will
pollute the environment” reduced to one dimension. Indeed C generally has a very