Focus on Facility Closure

Closure of Mining Pond B at Richards Bay Minerals, South Africa In 2007 when Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) decided to close their Mining Pond B, SRK was appointed to manage the project. Prior to removing the pond and rehabilitating the pond area, the dredger had to be docked for transfer...

From abandoned site to community asset The Yankee Girl site is an abandoned tailings area located on the shore of a river in the small community of Ymir, British Columbia, Canada. Tailings periodically eroded into the river and oxidation resulted in the release of contaminants, including cadmium, lead and zinc,...

Land rehabilitation requirements and practices in Russia Russian legislative requirements on closure and rehabilitation are contained in federal laws and related regulations, under titles law “About subsoil”, Land Code, law “About environmental protection”, “Instruction about the work order on liquidation and temporary closing-down of dangerous industrial projects related to the...

Rehabilitation and construction issues for Silvermines, Ireland The Silvermines area in County Tipperary, Ireland comprises an area of around 5km2 plus a 74ha tailings facility. A number of abandoned open pits and underground mines were worked there, mainly from the 17th to 20th century, for lead, zinc, copper and barites...

San Manuel, Arizona: from mining to reclamation The San Manuel property is a former integrated mining, milling and smelting operation located in central Arizona, USA. Large-scale mining activities started with underground block cave operations in the 1950s. In the mid-1980s, mining was expanded to include a surface heap-leach facility and...

Mine closure regulation in Turkey The “Regulation on Reclamation of Lands Disturbed by Mining Activities,” published in December 2007 and amended in January 2010, is a milestone toward establishing requirements for mine closure planning in Turkey. It requires that reclamation plans for mining projects be appended to the Environmental Impact...

Capital expenditure to reduce long term closure liability SRK Reno recently designed and permitted a flotation tailings disposal impoundment in Nevada. The conceptual engineering design envisioned traditional grading, embankment construction, and a single synthetic liner overlain by a drainage system with a gravity outfall passing through the synthetic liner into...

Soil covers for cold region mine closures Soil covers are widely used in the closure of tailings and waste rock. However, current soil cover practices are based on experience from temperate regions, and on the theoretical basis provided by agricultural soil physics, which is also derived largely from studies in...

Closure planning to comply with the International Cyanide Code About 10 years ago, a multi-stakeholder group created a system that demonstrates a company’s voluntary commitment to environmental standards under the International Cyanide Code. Companies certified under the Code (referred to as Signatories) have publically committed to comply with its requirements...

Using abandoned mines as field laboratories SRK Cardiff and Cardiff School of Engineering are collaborating to characterise the impacts associated with mine waste at historical sites in central Wales, stretching back over 800 years. Our study will systematically collect representative mine waste samples from historic mine dumps. Working with industrial...