Mining companies need more
skilled engineers if they are to meet strict new global safety standards
for tailings dams aimed at preventing catastrophic failures like those
in recent years that have killed hundreds of people and inundated nearby
communities with mine waste.
“Most companies are realizing
that there is a skills gap, because you have senior people moving out
and not enough younger people moving in,” said mining engineering
professor Priscilla Nelson, who is setting up a new tailings program at
the Colorado School of Mines.
Experts said miners had not
placed as much importance on tailings management, with little prestige
attached to the unglamorous work of trekking to remote mine waste dams,
where engineers analyze the consistency of the slurry and verify the
integrity of the structure.
In Brazil, more than 250 people
died in 2019 when the Vale’s Brumadinho upstream tailings dam collapsed,
flooding the nearby community with mine waste.
The disaster, which came not
long after another fatal tailings dam collapse in Brazil, prompted a
year-long effort by an industry, investor and U.N. panel, which launched
the global tailings standard on Wednesday.
In June, Reuters exclusively
reported details of the standard, which the International Council of
Mining and Metals (ICMM) says its members will adhere to within three to
five years depending on tailings dams’ risk classification. The standard
is not binding but the panel expects that miners will adhere to it.
ICMM CEO Tom Butler said members
that are “consistently non-compliant” with the new standard may face
expulsion from the organisation.
“We want to see every company
that has a tailings facility adopt the standard,” he said.
Bruno Oberle, chair of the
tailings review panel, said the standard does not however apply to
abandoned tailings dams with no owner.
Lifting their game
Tailings dams, some of which
tower dozens of meters high and stretch for several kilometers, are the
most common waste-disposal method for miners.
The industry will struggle to
implement the new safety rules without new training and investment in
tailings management and academic courses to feed a dwindling pipeline of
new talent.
A submission published with the
standard said deep technical know-how is concentrated among a
“relatively small” group of tailings specialists globally. After that
there is a “rapid fall-off” of expertise among management and other key
players, like regulators.
“There is a lack of resources
within the mining industry to manage tailings,” said John Howchin,
secretary-general of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National
Pension Funds, which helped craft the standard.
Brumadinho showed how
devastating a tailings failure could be. Brazilian state prosecutors
have charged Vale’s former CEO with homicide over the disaster.
“Any more failures – no matter
whose mine it is – will affect the whole industry. Everyone has to lift
their game,” said Andy Fourie, director of a new tailings management
training program at the University of Western Australia.
BHP and Rio Tinto each
contributed 2 million Australian dollars ($1.43 million) to the program,
which will offer training for free to their employees and, for a fee, to
other mining companies.
Rio Tinto said the new global
standard would likely increase demand for tailings expertise across the
industry and said it would “prioritise our resources to the facilities
with the highest consequence classifications.”
More than a third of the world’s
tailings dams are at high risk of causing catastrophic damage to nearby
communities if they crumble, a Reuters analysis of company data found
last year.
Adam Matthews, director of
ethics and engagement at the Church of England pensions board, said on
Wednesday companies that don’t take the standard up will present a “very
clear risk” to investors.
Angelica Andrade, a Brumadinho
community member, gave an emotional tribute to her sister who died in
the disaster.
“I don’t care how much it’s
going to cost to implement the standard,” she said. “It is time for the
mining sector to stop being all about profits, and act with humanity.”
Environmental NGO Earthworks
said the standard does not provide sufficient safeguards for communities
as, among other things, it does not include a minimum recommended
distance between dams and neighbouring communities.
Source: Reuters |