Following the tragic collapse of the Jagersfontein tailings storage facility (TSF) within the Free State on September 11, there was a resurgence of pressing requires audits of South Africa’s different TSFs.
The collapse of the Jagersfontein TSF claimed one human life and practically 900 cattle belonging to a minimum of 25 farmers, whereas destroying greater than 50 homes, ruining water provides and crops, and displacing practically 400 folks.
Talking on the Mine Occupational Well being and Security Tripartite Summit, hosted by the Mine Well being and Security Council in Midrand, Gauteng, on October 13, organised labour stakeholder advocate Hanlie van Vuuren referred to as on Mineral Sources and Power Minister Gwede Mantashe – who additionally attended the occasion – to conduct an pressing and speedy survey of all TSFs within the nation.
Mantashe responded by voicing his considerations concerning the security of the nation’s TSFs, singling out the Free State as having many extra TSFs that had been akin to the Jagersfontein one and, due to this fact, posed the same menace.
He implied that there was a normal lack of correct {qualifications} amongst those that managed TSFs in South Africa, saying that these workers had been certified in mining, and never in water administration.
“The burst of the tailings dam in Jagersfontein is a reminder of the risks posed to the lives of mining communities by operations that fall outdoors the Mine Well being and Security Inspectorate. It’s a painful lesson on the hurt of mine legacy initiatives,” Mantashe stated.
He singled out these within the personal sector who had been accountable for such disasters, stating that, regardless that corporations exploited loopholes within the laws by successful instances in opposition to the DMRE to sidestep accountability, within the courtroom of public opinion, contained in the affected communities, they’d be “endlessly responsible”.
The Jagersfontein collapse is the most recent in a sequence of TSF collapses globally this yr, with the earlier TSF collapse in South Africa having occurred in December final yr at mining funding firm Menar’s Zululand Anthracite Colliery, in KwaZulu- Natal.
On the colliery, a slurry dam collapsed, leading to liquid coal waste pouring into the Black Umfolozi and White Umfolozi river methods, flowing by means of rural communities and the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and iSimangaliso wildlife reserves.
Whereas these occasions have as soon as once more highlighted the rising concern concerning the impression of TSFs on the well being of individuals and animals, in addition to the broader setting being uncovered to poisonous and acidic waste, considerations relating to the preservation of heritage websites have additionally arisen within the case of Jagersfontein.
Heritage Versus Storage
When the South African Heritage Sources Company (SAHRA) and the Division of Water and Sanitation (DWS) granted Jagersfontein Developments – the corporate reprocessing previous tailings across the disused pit to get better diamonds – permission to backfill the Jagersfontein pit following the TSF collapse, Youssef Diamonds Liberia chief geologist and Florida Worldwide College earth and environmental sciences analysis professor Stephen Haggarty, a earlier proprietor of the Jagersfontein farm, wrote an open letter to the SAHRA decrying the choice.
Nonetheless, different trade voices, comparable to unbiased geologist Invoice McKechnie, responded by saying that the worth of the pit as a heritage web site is restricted when contrasted with the necessity to retailer the tailings from the operation in a safer method.
The Jagersfontein diamond mine is one in all South Africa’s oldest mines, presumably the primary industrial mine within the nation, and options a big hand-dug gap to rival the Huge Gap in Kimberley, within the Northern Cape.
Nonetheless, whereas Kimberley’s Huge Gap has benefited from ongoing assist from mining firm De Beers to keep up the positioning as a vacationer attraction, Jagersfontein has had no such assist.
World Diamond Community director Dr John Bristow agreed with McKechnie on the time of the SAHRA and DWS choice, saying that the preservation of a heritage web site was a luxurious that South Africa couldn’t afford in gentle of the urgency and seriousness of the Jagersfontein collapse.
Moderately, vitality must be targeted on discovering methods to forestall such incidents, he added.
South Africa’s TSF collapses have highlighted the necessity for higher monitoring and maybe elevated oversight. Nonetheless, whereas these could be the latest, they haven’t been as severe as another collapses which have continued to happen worldwide with rising frequency and severity.
A analysis paper printed in 2015 states that an evaluation of world TSF failures over the previous 100 years confirmed an rising, but notable, development in direction of a better incidence of great and really severe incidents, stating that the “consequence of loss is changing into more and more higher”.
With the variety of deadly and ecologically harmful collapses occurring globally rising yearly, the clamour for improved TSF security rose sharply in January 2019, when an iron-ore TSF – owned by iron-ore miner Vale – collapsed on the Córrego do Feijão iron-ore mine, in Brumadinho, Brazil, killing as many as 270 folks and inflicting important harm to property and the setting.
Thought-about to be one of many worst TSF collapses ever, and one of many general worst mining-related disasters, it resulted within the launch of about 12.1 m3 of tailings into the setting.
The tailings devastated the Córrego do Feijão brook and reached the adjoining Paraopeba river, the area’s predominant watercourse and a serious tributary of the São Francisco basin, destroying houses, farms and companies alongside the best way.
Whereas there isn’t any indication from the DMRE or the DWS that an audit of South Africa’s TSFs can be carried out, efforts are being made to handle this challenge on a worldwide scale.
World Answer
Following the incident at Brumadinho, Investor Mining and Tailings Security Initiative chair and Church of England Pensions Board chief accountable funding officer Adam Matthews labored to convene trade buyers, together with specialists from the tutorial, private and non-private sectors, to research methods of addressing the urgent considerations round TSF security.
“It was astonishing to search out that there isn’t any international file of tailings services. We didn’t know which corporations had tailings services and what stage of threat every facility had. None of that info was there,” Matthews says.
Whereas progress has been made since 2019, when buyers labored with corporations by means of the Worldwide Council on Mining and Metals and with the United Nations Atmosphere Programme to develop a World Business Customary on Tailings Administration, Matthews says that latest TSF collapses, such because the one at Jagersfontein, point out that extra nonetheless must be finished.
Whereas the usual is now being adopted by the biggest mining corporations worldwide, a remaining concern lingers surrounding these TSFs the place the possession is ill-defined and, due to this fact, whose accountability it’s to keep up them.
Matthews says a database of all TSFs globally needs to be established.
Most corporations, significantly publicly listed corporations, made each effort to be clear about their TSFs; nonetheless, many services owned by personal entities stay unaccounted for, their possession obscured by the altering of arms over time and, in some instances, poor record-keeping.
To beat this drawback, he says that satellite tv for pc imagery has been explored as a viable approach of finding all of the TSFs that haven’t been made recognized by means of reporting and the gathering of documentation. Utilizing such imagery could possibly be profitable due to the uniquely identifiable signature of TSFs.
After compiling a complete repository, Matthews says the purpose is then to determine which of these services are in danger to permit for monitoring and rehabilitation, the place wanted.
He says a satellite-based international monitoring system could be operated utilizing floor sensors, wherever potential, to independently monitor the highest-risk TSFs, whether or not publicly or privately owned.
“The place there’s clear possession constructions, you possibly can tackle these entities, however the place there isn’t clear possession, or services are in international locations the place there are challenges when it comes to having the ability to tackle a high-risk tailings facility, it turns into extra sophisticated to take care of.”
Work is beneath method to conclude an settlement between the United Nations and institutional buyers on the creation of an unbiased World Institute on Tailings Administration, provides Matthews.
It’s to this finish that institutional buyers have invited mining firm CEOs, authorities Ministers from main mining nations and different key stakeholders to a worldwide tailings summit in London, within the UK, on January 24. The purpose is to place these proposals to key stakeholders to get the proposals off the bottom.
A key a part of that is the worldwide tailings legacy rehabilitation fund, which Matthews says is proposed as a devoted technique of funding interventions on the highest threat and probably the most harmful orphaned tailings dams, the place proprietor duties can’t be clearly recognized or the place there may be not sufficient present funding to handle the issue.
The main points of the fund can even be mentioned on the summit in January.
