It is anticipated that the survival and prosperity of mining companies into the future will depend on their ability to demonstrate to stakeholder communities their right to a “social license to operate”. Arguably, tailings dams represent the single largest risk to the mining industry's social license to operate. Unlike open pits and underground operations that fail internally, the all too common release of tailings from surface facilities report downstream, threatening people, infrastructure and the environment. Unlike surface waste rock dumps that fail only occasionally, affecting the immediate environment, released tailings and water will flow considerable distances downstream. Open pits, underground operations, waste rock and tailings may all have the potential to generate contaminated seepage and runoff. The paper discusses the tailings management strategies that successful mining companies will need to employ, with some references to mining in Chile and Australia, and to tailings dam failures worldwide that threaten the industry's future social license to operate.
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