Welcome

29 September - 1 October 2010

Sheraton Perth Hotel, Western Australia

LATEST NEWS!

* ABSTRACTS DUE 1 MARCH 2010 *

Submit your abstract online.

The ACG is delighted announce the following keynote speakers:

Gary Bentel

'The real value to the mining industry of leading-practice waste management'

Michael Shelbourn, Barrick Gold of North America, Inc., USA

Mine Waste 2010 brochure

Background

Whether the mining industry is in a boom period or a downturn, the universal truth is that there is rarely money to be made out of tailings management. The reality is that it is invariably solely a cost to a company. An understandable management approach is one in which cost minimisation is the sole criterion for successful tailings management.

However, as has occurred time and time again, decisions based purely on minimising costs have let to major structural failures and disastrous environmental releases. Within the past three years there have been at least three failures of tailings storage resulting in fatalities, as well as many more minor incidents, all of which serve to tarnish the image of the mining industry. At a time when media and public scrutiny of incidents such as this is becoming more intense, the continuing licence to operate, as well as obtaining clearance for new developments, is being threatened by stakeholder perceptions of the dangers posed by mine waste storage facilities.

Seminar Objectives

This seminar will tackle the full range of issues that constitute risks in the management of mining wastes, particularly tailings and waste rock. It will provide a forum where practitioners, researchers and regulators can debate key shortcomings in our current understanding of the performance of mine waste storage facilities and associated risks faced by owners and operators of these facilities.

Aside from presentation of papers by selected authors, there will be a series of workshop sessions tackling specific issues of relevance, as well as a number of keynote lectures from international speakers to ensure the state-of-the-art is presented at this seminar.

Seminar Themes

Abstracts are now invited for consideration for presentation at the seminar, which has the following broad themes:

Improvements in design of tailings storage facilities
Dam break analysis: appropriate tools and calibrated case studies
Appropriate in situ testing techniques
The application of geosynthetics in mine waste management
Use of mining waste in backfilling of mining voids
Mitigating the impacts of geochemical problems
New approaches to the management of waste rock
Accounting for climate change
Sustainable closure and the concept of designing for perpetuity
Improved management and operational strategies to minimise risk
Case studies

When considering submission of an abstract, authors are reminded of the overall theme of the seminar; reducing risk in the mangement of tailings and mine waste. The driving goal of this seminar is that delegates come away with a number of new ideas and potential solutions to dealing with their mining waste issues in a way that minimises the impacts of these facilities on communities and the environment.