What Does 'Perpetual' Management and Treatment Mean? Toward a Framework for Determining an Appropriate Period-of-Performance for Management of Reactive, Sulfide-Bearing Mine Wastes

摘要

Mine wastes, typically millions to billions of metric tonnes and occupying hundreds to thousands of hectares, will remain geochemically reactive for centuries to millennia. Estab-lishing a coherent basis for determining how far into the future proposed mine-site closure must be effective has too often been neglected. Consideration of closure stages, closure risks, and engineering practice suggest that a planning period for management of mine wastes should be nominally 200 years. It should include a semi-quantitative assessment of whether or not major changes in performance are likely to occur between approximately 200 and 1,000 years.