The progressive development of regulatory requirements and controls (regulatory creep) over the life of an operation can result in environmental monitoring programs with no clear purpose and inefficiencies in data collection and research efforts. This is particularly the case where rehabilitation completion criteria are ill-defined or ambiguous, as is common in Queensland Australia but arguably more widely. In circumstances where environmental monitoring is conducted to achieve compliance, the various environmental values (i.e. land, water and air) tend to be treated as "silos" rather than integrated components. Poor understanding of the synergies between components can result in a lack of coordination between technical disciplines and missed opportunities for efficiencies. Rehabilitation success at a landscape scale requires that these values be considered collectively. If rehabilitation objectives are well-defined, operational monitoring and rehabilitation research can be rationalised to meet immediate compliance or operational needs, and concurrently generate a data-set suitable for validating rehabilitation completion and for quantifying the residual risk post-closure. This, in essence, is the optimisation approach presented and is illustrated with examples from a case study at Ernest Henry Mine (EHM), a copper mine in north west Queensland, Australia. The optimisation of site information is a conceptually simple approach, strategically staged to manage a complex risk, further supported by the realisation of associated commercial benefits (direct cashflow savings, investment returns, and reduced liabilities including bonds). The initial focus at EHM was on amending licensing and approval conditions to deliver well-defined end land use and measurable rehabilitation objectives. This was followed by planning to achieve and validate rehabilitation objectives through an integrated approach, implemented during the operational phase, which rationalises environmental monitoring, management and research resources devoted across environmental disciplines.Optimisation aims to achieve a reduced workload and realise cost savings through focusing environmental and rehabilitation monitoring efforts to serve the dual function of compliance and providing supporting data and documentation to demonstrate pro-active progression towards closure.
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