Abstract:

The large number of active mines and legacy mine sites in Canada has led to a large inventory of at-risk tailings storage facilities (TSF). Despite ever-evolving shared expertise, there are still concerns about TSF risks over a mine’s lifetime, including during its post-closure phase. The long-term risks of aging TSF infrastructure include structural (e.g. dam failures), chemical stability (e.g. acid rock drainage) and operational concerns. The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) released guidelines intended to provide mine operators and engineers with a framework for TSF maintenance and management. This wide-encompassing document only has a small section dedicated to monitoring, in contrast with its importance for TSF management. As per the ICMM, a well-designed monitoring plan will help maintain the TSF for decades by providing data on the TSF’s behaviour over significant periods of time. Another resource for designing an effective TSF program and Operations, Monitoring and Surveillance (OMS) is the Towards Sustainable Mining Initiative Tailings Guide along with a complete OMS manual. In this paper, we will expand on the ICMM’s recommendations for monitoring using specific examples from mining projects in Canada for which we have commissioned monitoring systems. Monitoring systems that were deployed include everything from the installation of instruments such as piezometers all the way to permanent data storage and online real-time visualization tools. We will show how each component of a monitoring plan should be considered carefully and how they may be overlooked. These components include, but are not limited to, establishing the motivations for monitoring, the expected range needed for each instrument, how the data correlates with the design assumptions, and the creation of a chain of command to react to exceedances before they become critical.

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Ali Siamaki