#Monday_musings_on_mining

A series of mining-related musings

Let me first start by saying that I’m not a technical expert, engineer, or a specialist in mining operations. I am however, a sustainability practitioner, who believes that mining as a sector needs to do better, from a sustainability perspective.

This Monday. Tailings. I’m almost certain that tailings will come up again in this series. But it feels topical this Monday, in light of yet another tailings dam failure, this time in Zambia. The event occurred on 18 February, and luckily so far there have been no fatalities directly related to the failure. There is however a huge socio-environmental impact, which is only just being unpacked. However, it looks like this could be the second biggest tailings dam failure in Zambia’s history.

Some of the actual and possible/potential impacts

• People local to the incident are without water, which should be restored this week (w/c 24 Feb)
• Damages to property in the local community - the community affected is poor and will need support to rebuild
• The spillage contained toxic heavy metals in the sludge of the dam. The residue was also acidic - no doubt now flowing downstream to impact the wider environment on a larger scale
• Over 200 farmers are impacted by the event
• Due to the toxic nature of the content - communities will need educating about the risk posed by water pollution, until it’s safe.

This is a relatively new facility. Constructed in 2004 and operational from 2006. I’m pretty sure that there will be a full investigation and the root causes of the event will emerge. The bottom line though for me. Is mining and mining processing operations need to do better.

The industry needs to do better:

>>>because without financial capital there can be no mining

>>>without mining there can be no just transition of the energy system

>>>without a just transition our ability to reduce climate change impacts will be hampered

>>>if you don’t work toward a scenario of lower climate change impact there will be more extreme weather events

>>>if there are more extreme weather events (and the increased risk factors haven’t been incorporated into Tailings Facility Design) you’re going to potentially have more Tailings Dam Failures.

And which investor is going to be comfortable with these reputational risks?

Thanks to Holy Pola, P.Eng for bringing this sad news to my attention.