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Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines

Environmental groups propose tailings dam safety standards (Reuters Africa – June 30, 2020)

https://af.reuters.com/

June 30 (Reuters) – Mining companies should be required to buy private insurance for tailings dams and their board of directors should be held legally responsible for any disasters, a coalition of 140 environmental groups said in a report published on Tuesday.

The recommendations, which differ from standards to be published soon from a group that includes miners and investors, come as public scrutiny over tailings dams has intensified after the deadly 2019 collapse of a Brazil dam owned by Vale SA .

Earthworks and MiningWatch Canada, two prominent environmental nonprofits, co-wrote the report earthworks.org/safety-first that includes 16 recommendations they hope will be adopted by regulators across the world and used by bankers as they consider whether to lend to miners.

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NEWS RELEASE: Safety First: New Report Outlines Guidelines To End Mine Waste Disasters (Mining Watch – June 30, 2020)

https://miningwatch.ca/

(Ottawa/Washington, DC) Today an international group of 142 scientists, community groups, and NGOs from 24 countries published a set of 16 guidelines for the safer storage of mine waste. The guidelines aim to protect communities, workers and the environment from the risks posed by thousands of mine waste storage facilities, which are failing more frequently and with more severe outcomes.

“Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management” states that the ultimate goal of tailings management must be zero harm to people and the environment and zero tolerance for human fatalities. Last year’s tragic dam collapse in Brazil killed 270 people and destroyed the town of Brumadinho, and came on the heels of tailings dam failures at the Mount Polley mine in Canada and the Samarco mine in Brazil, among others.

There are 71 known cases of tailings failures since 2010 that have led to 482 deaths and damaged over 2,100 km of waterways. Across the world, communities in the shadow of large tailings dams live in a state of perpetual fear.

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Russian mining giant behind major Arctic fuel spill admits waste ‘violations’ (South China Post – June 29, 2020)

https://www.scmp.com/

Agence France-Presse – A Russian mining giant behind an enormous Arctic fuel spill last month said Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping waste water into nearby tundra.

Norilsk Nickel cited a “flagrant violation of operating rules” in a statement announcing it had suspended employees responsible for dumping waste water from a dangerously full reservoir into wildlife.

The incident occurred at the Talnakh enrichment plant near the Arctic city of Norilsk, the company said, one month after the unprecedented fuel leak sparked a state of emergency declared by President Vladimir Putin.

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Exclusive: Global tailings dam standards fall short of changes sought by civil society groups – by Jeff Lewis (Reuters U.S. – June 24, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO (Reuters) – A sweeping global standard that sets out how the world’s largest miners care for waste dams falls short of measures environmental and civil society groups say are needed to avert future disasters, according to a copy of the final draft seen by Reuters.

A panel of industry, investor and U.N. groups has been working for more than a year on the standard, triggered by the 2019 collapse of Vale SA’s (VALE3.SA) Brumadinho upstream tailings dam that killed more than 250 people. The standard is not binding but the panel expects that miners will adhere to it.

Tailings dams, some of which tower dozens of meters high and stretch for several kilometers, are the most common waste-disposal method for miners. Brazil has banned new upstream mining dams and ordered existing ones be deactivated by 2021.

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The Oil Spill From Russian Nickel Mine Is Moving Toward The Arctic Ocean (NPR.org – June 16, 2020)

https://www.npr.org/

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

There is an environmental disaster developing in the Arctic. More than 150,000 barrels of diesel oil from a mining complex spewed into a river in northern Russia late last month. It is the biggest oil spill in the Arctic to date. And now the oil slick is moving towards the Arctic Ocean. NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports.

JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Most Arctic experts agree that the three great concerns for the frozen north are climate change, stranded ships and oil spills.

VICTORIA HERRMANN: To get a response to an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean means that you have to move infrastructure, expertise, ships from more southern ports up to the Arctic.

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Huge Arctic Fuel Spill May Have Been Triggered by Climate Change – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – June 4, 2020)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

Russia declared a federal state of emergency in part of Siberia after a massive fuel spill that MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC said could have been caused by melting permafrost.

The May 29 incident, in which 20,000 tons of diesel leaked from a reservoir owned by Nornickel, may revive concerns about the effects of climate change on infrastructure in the Arctic. Scientists have warned for years that thawing of once permanently frozen ground covering more than half of Russia is threatening the stability of buildings and pipelines.

Greenpeace said the accident was the largest ever in the Arctic region, and likened it to the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989. The cause of the spill hasn’t been determined, but Nornickel First Vice President Sergey Dyachenko said on Thursday it could be the result of damage from melting permafrost. The rate of warming in the Arctic is twice as fast as the rest of the world.

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Guest view: Fix Canadian mining issues now – by Rich Moy and Ric Hauer (Montana Standard – June 2020)

https://mtstandard.com/

Rich Moy spent over 30 years working in water policy, planning and management in Montana and regionally and served as a U.S. commissioner on the International Joint Commission from 2011 to 2019. Ric Hauer is professor emeritus at the University of Montana and Flathead Lake Biological Station. Both have worked on Canadian mining issues since the late 1970s.

An international group of science and policy experts from the United States and Canada recently published a letter in the prestigious journal Science voicing concern for the poisoning of U.S. rivers stemming from Canadian headwaters. The source of the contamination? Hard-rock and coal mining.

We’ve known about the toxins flowing from British Columbia into downstream states for decades. However, the poisoning of U.S. waters from Canadian mining is about to get dramatically worse and will go on for centuries if it is not stopped, and stopped before it’s too late.

The Science article urged immediate action calling on the United States and Canada to jointly invoke the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to resolve several transboundary water disputes.

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U.S. demands explanation from province over river pollution from B.C. mines – by Bob Weber (CBC News British Columbia – May 11, 2020)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Contamination from Teck coal mines in waterways of Elk River watershed is a long-standing problem

CANADIAN PRESS: The U.S. government is increasingly concerned about pollution from British Columbian mines, following new research that shows contaminants in a river south of the border came from Canada.

In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding the provincial government hand over data explaining why Teck Resources coal mines in southern B.C. are being allowed to exceed guidelines for a toxic heavy metal.

“The EPA … finds it unacceptable that the province has accepted [a treatment plan] that will allow seasonal exceedances of water quality objectives into the future,” says the Feb. 4 letter to B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman.

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Tailings risk management still not up to standard – foundation – by Marleny Arnoldi (MiningWeekly.com – April 7, 2020)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The mining industry is still “dragging its heels” on the step-change measures required to prevent catastrophic tailings failures, such as the Brumadinho tailings dam collapse in Brazil that killed 270 people, says Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF).

In the newly released ‘Responsible Mining Index 2020’, RMF reveals that while investor-led action, triggered by the disaster in Brazil, has resulted in improved transparency on companies’ tailings storage facilities (TSFs), the “vast majority” of companies are still unable to demonstrate that they are reviewing how effectively they are managing TSF-related risks and taking responsive actions where needed.

“Critically, very few mine sites show evidence of having informed local communities about what to do in the event of a tailings-related emergency,” RMF says.

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Waste molybdenum ore spill in China spreads 110 km downstream (Reuters U.S. – April 1, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING (Reuters) – A spill from a tailings dam at a molybdenum mine in northeast China on Saturday has contaminated water up to 110 km (68 miles) downstream, environmental authorities said on Wednesday.

Tailings dams are commonly used by mining firms to store waste remnants of ore but they have come under close scrutiny since the collapse of one in Brazil last year killed more than 250 people.

In China’s Heilongjiang province on Saturday, water containing waste molybdenum ore – mined for the metal used in stainless steel and tools – flowed out of a tailings pond belonging to Yichun Luming Mining Co Ltd and into a river system. There were no casualties reported.

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Researcher: Uranium cleanup should be No. 1 priority – by Rima Krisst (Navajo Times – March 12, 2020)

https://navajotimes.com/

CROWNPOINT, N.M.: “Illness due to uranium is no longer just the story of the miners. It’s the story of their children and grandchildren,” said Southwest Research and Information Center Environmental Health Specialist Chris Shuey. Shuey, who studies contaminants in the environment and their potential health effects, calls the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation an atrocity.

“Hopefully, these hearings will result in new and better policy to speed up the cleanup, fund addition health studies, and get reparations and compensation for the people,” said Shuey, who presented at a hearing in Crownpoint on a proposed Navajo Nation position statement on uranium.

Because of the shroud of secrecy and superstition surrounding uranium as a weapon of war, health studies and continuing education about the impacts did not occur as soon as they should have, he said. “Not knowing and not talking is equivalent to a death sentence because you can’t do anything about it,” said Shuey.

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THE DRIFT 2020: Clean-tech company ready to tackle mining legacy sites – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 28, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Indigenous-owned Carbonix using wood waste residue to trap industrial contaminants

A First Nation clean technology company in northwestern Ontario believes it has a green solution to clean up contaminated environments. Carbonix, a Fort William First Nation-based firm, is developing a proprietary process to use activated carbon to treat industrial waste streams and clean up contaminated environments.

The privately owned company sees substantial opportunities surrounding abandoned mines in Ontario in supporting remediation efforts to treat tailings and acid rock drainage.

Carbonix CEO Paul Pede has high hopes 2020 will be an “inflection point” for the “nano media company” once they are able to roll out their technology across Canada, including an upcoming pilot project in Alberta to treat water and tailings in the oilsands.

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THE DRIFT 2020: The Sudbury story: City’s regreening program has valuable lessons for the world – by Colleen Romaniuk (Northern Ontario Business – February 28, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Four decades ago, countries around the world were using the word ‘Sudbury’ as a unit of pollution. The city was the single largest point source of sulfur dioxide emissions in the 1960s, producing about 2.5 million tonnes per year.

According to John Gunn, director of the Vale Living With Lakes Centre at Laurentian University, that’s bigger than all of Europe today. “Countries were saying, how many Sudburys do you produce?” said Gunn. “And the answer to that question wasn’t one. It was less than one.” Air quality, however, was the tip of the iceberg.

The region had been reduced to a barren wasteland (often referred to as a moonscape) after only a few decades of mining and smelting. Local vegetation was devastated by acid rain and logging, as Sudbury earned a reputation of being one of the most infamous disasters in North America.

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Northern mine cleanups continue; province, feds still divided on cost – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – February 24, 2020)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Crews are expected to start assessing Saskatchewan’s first uranium mine, which was staked 100 years ago, this summer.

Saskatchewan’s first uranium discovery was staked a century ago, but it took almost three decades before prospectors gave up attempting to extract iron, copper and gold from the site and turned their attention to its last remaining mineral resource.

Named for the former Royal North-West Mounted Police officer who re-staked the site on the north shore of Lake Athabasca in 1929, the Nicholson mine underwent development in 1949 and sent out its first uranium shipments five years later.

Production halted in 1956 after Consolidated Nicholson Mines Ltd.’s supply contract ended in the face of falling prices. Subsequent efforts to resume mining failed and the remote site was abandoned with little cleanup effort a few years later.

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Yukonomist: Three questions on Yukon Zinc and China – by Keith Halliday (Yukon News – February 20, 2020)

https://www.yukon-news.com/

What would you like the Yukon government to spend $35.5 million on? Perhaps more nurses at the hospital? Some green power plants to fight climate change? Affordable housing? More front-line teachers?

Well, never mind. Judging from Yukon Zinc’s bankruptcy case, it looks like the government will be spending it cleaning up another abandoned mine. This case is particularly troubling. First, it’s recent. The mine opened in 2012. Unlike Faro, we can’t blame this one on 1960s-era mining techniques and long-dead mining executives and regulators.

Second, it’s on the Yukon’s tab. Devolution meant gaining authority over our own resources. It also meant that we would be on the hook for mining mishaps authorized by the Yukon government. The Yukon government is already going into deeper debt each fiscal year, and a $35.5 million hit will have to come out of the hide of other public programs.

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