Managing Water to Minimize Risk in Tailings Storage Facility Design, Construction, and Operation

Reducing the amount of water in a milled tailings storage facility (TSF) is the primary way to reduce the risk of a catastrophic failure. In addition, a significant factor influencing the permitting and development of new mines, or the expansion of existing mines, is the limited availability of water in some mineral-rich countries, which has led to recent advances in water resource management and improved operational practices. Water reduction can be used to thicken the slurry to varying degrees of solids content up to a highly thickened, paste consistency using conventional or positive displacement pumps to transport the tailings, or with filters to mechanically reduce the water and convey the tailings by truck or conveyor. This paper suggests a method to optimize water use and to evaluate and reduce project risks at the conceptual development stage for both a thickened TSF and a filtered TSF.