The new expertise required for designing safe tailings storage facilities 

Dr. G. Ward Wilson, PEng, PGeol, FCAE, FEIC, Professor of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and the NSERC/COSIA Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Oil Sands Tailings Geotechnique, presents his talk "The new expertise required for designing safe tailings storage facilities".
Abstract: The global mining community has seen a dangerous sequence of failures in tailings dams, beginning with Mount Polley mine, followed by the Samarco, Cadia Valley and Córrego do Feijão mines. This sequence of failures began on August 4, 2014, at the Mount Polley tailings storage facility in British Columbia, Canada. The initial failure in the embankment at the Mount Polley tailings storage facility had substantial impact on the global mining industry. The Independent Expert Engineering Investigation and Review Panel (IEEIRP) tasked with the investigation of the breach in the tailings dam at Mount Polley made major contributions for new guidelines. The incident has given rise to comprehensive recommendations for best available tailings technologies (BAT) based on principles such as the elimination of surface water from impoundments with the promotion of unsaturated conditions in the tailings through drainage provisions. The application of these BAT principles for the surface storage of tailings leads to the use of filtered tailings technology. Filtered tailings technology or“dry stack tailings” can satisfy each of the BAT components when the impoundment is properly designed and constructed. The implementation of the best available technologies for the physical stability (BAT-PS) of tailings impoundments competes directly with the best available technologies for the chemical stability (BAT-CS) of reactive tailings that may produce acid and metalliferous drainage. The new expertise in mine waste management required to achieve both BAT-PS and BAT-CS will be discussed.
Speaker Bio: G. Ward Wilson, PhD, PEng, PGeol, FCAE, FEIC, is a Professor of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and the NSERC/COSIA Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Oil Sands Tailings Geotechnique. He brings over 30 years of industrial experience to his practice in advanced mine waste management and unsaturated soil mechanics. He has served as a specialist advisor to several large international mining projects, such as the well-known Acid Rock Drainage Risk Review completed by Rio Tinto, and was a member of the Expert Panel tasked with the assessment of the technical causes of the rupture of Dam I in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He served as the lead author responsible for the chapter on Prevention and Mitigation in the Global Acid Rock Drainage Guide prepared for the International Network for Acid Prevention and contributed two chapters to the Guidelines for Mine Waste Dump and Stockpile Design (CSIRO Publishing). Further, Dr. Wilson is a co-principal investigator and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the NSERC Strategic Network Grant (Toward Environmentally Responsible Resource Extraction Network, TERRE-NET). TERRE-NET unites leading Canadian academic researchers with partners from the public and private sector, First Nations and Inuit communities, and international experts to address complex technical and socioeconomic concerns related to responsible resource extraction, including mine-waste management and mine-site reclamation.