Environmental & Energy
Dec. 12, 2019
New mining standards aim to prevent future catastrophes
The driver for these draft international standards is two recent catastrophic failures of tailings storage facilities in Brazil. In January, a TSF owned and operated by Vale in the state of Minas Gerais, near Brumadinho, collapsed, sending a tidal wave of mud and other debris downstream that killed over 250 people. Another TSF owned and operated by Samarco failed in Minas Gerais at Mariana in November 2015, killing 19 people and spreading pollutants over 400 miles of surface waters, eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
Samuel L. Brown
Partner
Hunton Andrews Kurth
Samuel is a former attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and he currently focuses on environmental and natural resource matters in the U.S. and globally.
Antonio Augusto Reis
Partner
Rennó, Penteado, Reis & Sampaio
Antonio focuses his practice on both environmental consulting and litigation associated with large infrastructure projects in Brazil.
An independent panel of academics, engineers and other experts, in November 2019, released a draft set of international standards for tailings storage facilities (TSF). Ore is reduced into sand-sized particles and mixed with water during mining operations before the valuable minerals are removed and the remaining milled rock slurry — called tailings — flows to the TSF, an engineered impoundment. It is estimated there are over 3,500 TSFs globally.
$95
Or access this article for $45
(Purchase provides 7-day access to this article. Printing, posting or downloading is not allowed.)
Already a subscriber?
Sign In