About This Book
Recent dam failures have demonstrated the need for improvements in the design,
management and regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and
eventually eliminate, the risks of failure of existing and future facilities. The scope
of the challenge is well documented in the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) report released in October 2017 in Geneva entitled UNEP GRID-Arendal
assessment entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident.”
The UNEP report recommends that “Regulators, industry and communities
should adopt a shared zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities…” and has
identified many areas where further improvements are required to meet this
objective. In keeping with this objective, we believe that the application of
cutting-edge risk assessment methodologies and risk management practices can
contribute to the significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures
through risk-informed decision making.
Thus, the primary purpose of this book is to identify and describe those risk
assessment approaches and risk management practices that must be implemented in
order to develop a path forward to reach societally acceptable tailings dam risks. In
support of this, we will describe appropriate, existing and proven risk management
approaches. It will be shown that these can actually lead to the highest standards of
tailings dam design and management required to reach UNEP goals and a sustainable and societally acceptable mining industry.
This book discussion is split into three parts:
Part I, State of Affairs, looks at several examples of recent catastrophic failures
from a forensic analysis point of view, as they were performed by various independent panels and entities. At the end of Part I, the various recommendations are
distilled into one comprehensive “specs file” for the twenty-first century.
Part II, How to Build a Twenty-First-Century Comprehensive Risk
Management Program, starts with a basic list of “DON’Ts,” after which the tone
turns positive and the text follows the logic of a real-life risk-informed
decision-making approach. Indeed, each chapter corresponds to a necessary step
to develop a modern risk assessment which can then lead to risk-informed decision
making “from cradle to grave” of a tailings facility, or any other mining system.
ix
Recent dam failures have demonstrated the need for improvements in the design,
management and regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and
eventually eliminate, the risks of failure of existing and future facilities. The scope
of the challenge is well documented in the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) report released in October 2017 in Geneva entitled UNEP GRID-Arendal
assessment entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident.”
The UNEP report recommends that “Regulators, industry and communities
should adopt a shared zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities…” and has
identified many areas where further improvements are required to meet this
objective. In keeping with this objective, we believe that the application of
cutting-edge risk assessment methodologies and risk management practices can
contribute to the significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures
through risk-informed decision making.
Thus, the primary purpose of this book is to identify and describe those risk
assessment approaches and risk management practices that must be implemented in
order to develop a path forward to reach societally acceptable tailings dam risks. In
support of this, we will describe appropriate, existing and proven risk management
approaches. It will be shown that these can actually lead to the highest standards of
tailings dam design and management required to reach UNEP goals and a sustainable and societally acceptable mining industry.
This book discussion is split into three parts:
Part I, State of Affairs, looks at several examples of recent catastrophic failures
from a forensic analysis point of view, as they were performed by various independent panels and entities. At the end of Part I, the various recommendations are
distilled into one comprehensive “specs file” for the twenty-first century.
Part II, How to Build a Twenty-First-Century Comprehensive Risk
Management Program, starts with a basic list of “DON’Ts,” after which the tone
turns positive and the text follows the logic of a real-life risk-informed
decision-making approach. Indeed, each chapter corresponds to a necessary step
to develop a modern risk assessment which can then lead to risk-informed decision
making “from cradle to grave” of a tailings facility, or any other mining system.
ix