Summary

This review describes the design of mines and mine facilities, including infrastructures, open pits, underground mines, tailings facilities, waste rock dumps, heap leach pads and other waste disposal facilities for closure. It lists technology resources, websites, case histories, and consultants that discuss the design of mines for closures. It also includes consideration of the current and future costs of mine reclamation, restoration, and long-term surveillance and maintenance post-closure.

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INTRODUCTION

Designing and operating a mine for closure is now almost a commonplace. But if you are new to the concept or seek to refresh your information base, here is our summary of the current state of the technology, art, and thinking on the topic.

THE BEST TEXTS ON THE TOPIC

Though not quite the definitive handbook on mine closure, but it comes pretty close. I refer to Environmental Techniques for the Extractive Industries: Mine Closure Handbook. There are too many authors to list. It comes from Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy in 2008. Explanation of its origin and genesis is in this extract from the foreword:

This handbook has been prepared during the TEKES-funded project "Environmental Techniques for the Extractive Industries" which was undertaken as a joint research project between industry and various agencies during the years 2003-2005. The project was coordinated by Outokumpu Oyj with supporting industry partners being Tieliikelaitos (TLL, the Finnish Roads Enterprise) and Maa ja Vesi Oy (M&V Oy, Soil and Environment Ltd, which has been incorporated into Poyry Environment Oy). Public sector agencies participating in the project were Geologian tutkimuskeskus (GTK, Geological Survey of Finland) and Valtion teknillinen tutkimuskeskus (VTT, Technical Research Center of Finland).

The volume was written for use in Finland. It was not intended to cover mines outside of Finland. So it is "restricted" in a sense. But it is so comprehensive at 170 pages and covers so many topics in satisfying detail, that it is to be recommended to anyone interested in the subject, and to everyone charged with closing a mine.

Intended for implementation at mines worldwide, The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) publishes Planning for Integrated Mine Closure: Toolkit. August 2008.

If you have not hitherto read about or thought about planning for mine closure, this new volume is an excellent place to start. The first five chapters take you at an even pace through the reasons why you should plan for closure from start to finish of a mine. The chapters set out the steps towards formulating a cost-effective and responsible closure plan. Then you are told how to implement this plan and why you should do so.

This volume emphasizes the fact that:

Mine closure remains a challenging subject, despite clear recognition of good practice by operations and external stakeholder and the technical ability of companies to achieved recognized good practice. Many of the challenges are posed by the context or situation of a mine or mine development rather than by technical challenges and further dialogue on these issues from the users of this document is needed.

Which is a long and convoluted way of saying that engineers and scientists can close mines given time and money, but management and budgets, regulators and their demands for certainty, and hysterical NGOs get in the way.

The most valuable part of this volume is the so-called "toolkit" of Section 6. Here again not much new, but nevertheless a useful collation of ideas, checklists, and best practice approaches. If you do what is inherent in the toolkit, nobody can accuse you of irresponsibility-you can justifiably claim to be mining responsibly.