Mining for Closure: Policies, practises and guidelines for sustainable mining and closure of mines

vironmental, social and economic harm. There is a significant need for improvements in the standard of the environmental protection policies, manage- ment systems and technologies applied at many mine sites. In many settings, it is the removal of present and significant risk (and danger) that must have an immediate and pressing priority. In seek- ing to ameliorate or remove such risks however, the broader objectives of longer term sustainability – and Mining for Closure – as shall be discussed in this 26. In this instance, the author is principally referring to legislative requirements for financial assurance for closure and reclamation. 27. Generally as posed by safety hazards such as unstable tailings impoundments, toxic waters, unsafe buildings, equipment, open holes, and so forth. However, it must be recognised that few (if any) items in the built or natural environment are “hazard free”. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that assume that in all countries there should be transparent debate and agreement on the level of acceptable risk pertinent environmental, social and economic aspects of mines and mining facilities post-closure. Further, the reader is referred to definitions of risk and hazard provided in the glossary of terms for this document. 28. The terms applied here, as drawn fromEnvironmental Aspects of Mine Closure produced by Sassoon (2000) and Mining for the Future: Appendix B - Mine Closure Working Paper produced by van Zyl, Sassoon, Fleury & Kyeyune (2002a) are generic but are intended to bear with them the intent and limitations presented in the source documents. Clearly the requirements for physical and chemical stability of physical resources and achievement of land use categories are not without bound. The reader is referred to the source documents for such. 29. Australian and New Zealand Minerals and Energy Council (ANZMEC) and the Australian Minerals Industry (represented by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA). 30. Note however, that the broadness of these positions are not universally shared as the following comment from a South Afri- can mining company representative demonstrates: “From the min- ing company’s point of view, the principal actions and liabilities associ- ated with mine closure at present are: the retrenchment of employees and the cost of associated severance packages as well as in some cases mitigatory funds for the retraining of retrenched employees; the reha- bilitation of the areas disturbed by mining and associated activities in line with statutory obligations” (Reichardt, 2002p, 2B-1). 31. To quote the European Commision (European Commission, 2003): The collapse of heaps and dams can have a serious impact on the environment and on human health and safety. The collapse of a heap of inert waste from a coal mine at Aberfan in Wales in 1966 was the worst ever such accident in the UK and caused the deaths of 144 people, mainly children. As for tailings dams, at world level these have failed at an average of 1.7 per year over the past 30 years. At Stava, Italy, in 1985, a fluorite tailings dam failed and released 200,000 m³ of inert tailings, killing 268 people and destroying 62 buildings. At Aznal- cóllar, Spain, in 1998, an accident in an area close to the Doñana Natural Park in South Andalusia released into the River Guadiamar 2 million m³ of tailings and 4 million m³ of water contaminated by heavy metals. At Baia Mare in Romania in 2000 a tailings pond burst releasing approximately 100,000 m³ of waste water containing up to 120 tonnes of cyanide and heavy metals into the River Lapus; this then travelled downstream into the Rivers Somes and Tisa into Hungary before entering the Danube. In Baia Borsa, also in Romania, 20,000 tonnes of tailings were released into the River Novat, a tributary of the Rivers Viseu and Tisa.

Sweden, and the United States and that this trend will undoubtedly continue. 26

Present-day attitudes to environmental protection are increasingly represented in the development of the concept of sustainable development, of “triple bottom line accounting”, of cleaner production, of life-cycle assessment to assess potential impacts, of the precautionary principle, and of environmental impact assessment to advise decision-makers and the broader community on the potential negative as well as positive outcomes of a proposed development. All of these are relevant o the mining industry, and extend from the pre-mine planning phase, through construction, mining, and mine closure to post-mine stewardship (Environment Australia, 2002b). According to Sassoon (2000), integrated mine planning – a term intended to capture the general ethos of “Mining for Closure” means that to achieve this: ... a mine closure plan should be an integral part of a project life cycle and be designed to ensure that: Future public health and safety are not com- promised; 27 Environmental resources are not subject to physical and chemical deterioration; 28 The after-use of the site is beneficial and sus- tainable in the long term; Any adverse socio-economic impacts are min- imised; and All socio-economic benefits are maximised. Mine rehabilitation is an ongoing programme designed to restore the physical, chemical and bio- logical quality or potential of air, land and water regimes disturbed by mining to a state acceptable to the regulators and to post-mining land users. The objective of mine closure is to prevent or mini- mise adverse long-term environmental impacts, and to create a self-sustaining natural ecosystem or alternate land use based on an agreed set of ob- jectives (ANZMEC MCA, 2000, p. v) 30 However, it is clear from such instances as the 1985 Stava tailings dam failure in Trento, Italy where 268 people were killed, the tailings dam collapse at Los Frailes in Spain in April 1998 and the Baia Mare cyanide spill in Romania in January 2000, 31 that mining activities still pose risks of significant en- • • • • • and in Australia key minerals industry representa- tive groups 29 hold that:

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MINING FOR CLOSURE