Page 6 - pd287-Oct20-mag-web_Neat

neWs

Global

standard to

avoid tailings

disasters

newly launched industry standard will offer
A miners, governments, communities and
investors clear guidance on how tailings stor-
age facilities should be managed across the
globe.
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings
Management covers the entire tailings facil- native methods of mineral recovery to signifi- tailings monitoring capabilities. Companies
ity lifecycle – from site selection, design and cantly reduce or even eliminate the genera- such as Newmont Corp (at Boddington gold
construction, through management and tion of tailings.” Butler said. mine, Western Australia), Rio Tinto Ltd (at
monitoring, to closure and post-closure. It Adam Matthews, director ethics and en- Hope Downs 4, WA) and South32 Ltd are
was developed through the Global Tailings gagement, investment team at the Church of already using Geomotion equipment on their
Review which was co-convened in March England Pensions Board (a member of PRI) storage facilities.
2019 by the United Nations Environment Pro- said the new standard would drive best prac- Geomotion national manager Karl Crit-
gramme (UNEP), Principles for Responsible tice and give investors a benchmark to rate tenden said industry leaders were increas-
Investment (PRI) and International Council miners against. ingly conscious of the need to improve their
on Mining and Metals (ICMM) following the “For the first time we have a global stand- tailings monitoring capabilities.
tragic tailings facility collapse at Brumadinho, ard that goes beyond existing best practice “We have been approached by a number
Brazil which saw 270 people killed in the sub- and establishes the most comprehensive of majors who are preparing to standardise
sequent landslide. standard that investors will hold companies tailings monitoring across their portfolio,” he
The UNEP has committed to supporting accountable for in their implementation.” said. “These companies are very serious
governments in implementation of the stand- While Australian mining has a solid track about monitoring every aspect of their opera-
ard in national or state legislation and policies record in tailings management, the new tions and are seeing the value and reliability
while the ICMM has said its members would standard is likely to filter through the domestic of our sensors and the wireless loggers. Our
implement the standard as part of their mem- industry given the PRI’s involvement. software matches up a cross-section of the
bership. Adoption of global industry standards can operation, from slopes to tailings, integrating it
The PRI, which represents $US103.4 tril- be challenging for companies outside the all with geotechnical and environmental data.”
lion in assets under management is develop- majors but according to Geomotion Australia Butler said ICMM members had committed
ing investor expectations to guide miners in managing director Kim Malcolm, miners of all to conforming with the standard within three
adopting the standard. sizes needn’t be overawed by the task of ap- years of its launch date for facilities with “ex-
The Global Tailings Review chair, Dr Bruno plying the standards requirements for moni- treme” or “very high” potential consequences,
Oberle, said the standard would set a prec- toring of existing tailings dams. and all other facilities within five years.
edent for the safe management of tailings Geomotion has been installing soil moni- The near-real time monitoring allows op-
facilities. toring software on Australian tailings dams for erators to gain a clearer picture of a facility’s
“I am particularly pleased to deliver a docu- five years. Malcolm said the company’s latest performance, allowing them to accurately
ment which reflects and addresses the com- technology, which uses wireless communica- predict anomalies and failures.
plexity and multi-disciplinary nature of sound tions technology, made tailings monitoring “Instead of relying solely on operator ex-
tailings management,” he said. safer, more effective and cheaper than previ- perience and knowledge, operators can
“It is my hope that the Standard will be ous systems. analyse the data captured in the loggers,”
supported by an independent body that can “Previously, even a major company may Malcolm said.
maintain the quality and further refine and have only one employee spending a week The Geomotion software also allows man-
strengthen the standard over time.” each month checking all the monitoring in- agers to set up alerts and alarms for incidents
ICMM chief executive Tom Butler told strument readings at every tailings facility. or indications of worrying movement.
Paydirt the standard was a “significant step” Only once they had then manually uploaded “It allows companies to select who has ac-
toward achieving members’ commitment to that data could they begin analysis of the tail- cess to the alarms and they can even present
safe tailings facility management. ings facilities,” Malcolm said. “Using the wire- the monitoring data on open websites to en-
“ICMM’s longer-term goal is to develop less data makes this process quicker, cheap- sure their management has a more public-
safe and sustainable alternatives to conven- er and safer, taking all the data at the top of facing interface,” Crittenden said.
tional wet tailings storage facilities. As such, the hole and doing away with the manual
through ICMM’s Tailings programme, our aspects of the process.” – Dominic Piper
members promote the development of tech- The cost and time savings delivered by us-
nologies to remove moisture from tailings and ing piezometers with wireless data logging
identify and support the development of alter- means companies can rapidly expand their

Page 6 OCTOBeR 2020 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT