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As higher quality mineral deposits run out, miners are turning to lower grade sources that generate more waste. To extract most metals, from iron to gold, miners often mix pulverized rock with water, creating a milkshake of silt and gravel. Tailings are the trash of the mining world. "The mining industry," says Joseph Scalia, a geotechnical engineer at Colorado State University, "is realizing they can't just spend as little as possible and the problem is going to go away." Others are working on regulatory and management fixes. A few have called for a ban on one common but failure-prone design. Some are trying to simply inventory the world's tailings dams-estimates of the number range from 3500 to 21,000-and identify those most at risk of failure. In response, scientists, governments, environmentalists, and miners are searching for safer ways to handle the tainted mud. "The consequences of a failure are getting much bigger," says Priscilla Nelson, a geotechnical engineer at the Colorado School of Mines. Some rise to nearly the height of the Eiffel Tower and hold back enough waste to fill Australia's Sydney Harbor. Last year, a dam disintegrated at a decommissioned Brazilian iron mine, releasing a torrent that killed 270 people.Įngineers fear more catastrophes await, as the world confronts a swelling volume of muddy mine tailings, contained by more and larger dams. In 2018, a dam failed at a major mine in Australia luckily, a second barrier prevented disaster. In 2015, a tailings dam in Brazil collapsed, unleashing a mammoth mud spill that killed 19 people, contaminated 668 kilometers of river, and reached the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, the sense of crisis has deepened. "That wasn't supposed to be able to happen," Jim Kuipers, an engineer and former tailings dam manager who now consults for environmental groups, recalls a colleague telling him. Many considered Canada a leader in developing rules aimed at preventing the failure of such tailings dams, and respected the mine's owner, Imperial Metals. The 2014 Mount Polley disaster shocked mining engineers around the world. Within a day, some 21 million cubic meters of gray goo and water-the tailings waste left behind by 16 years of copper and gold mining at the Mount Polley mine in western Canada-escaped from a holding pond behind the dam, buried a creek, and poured into Quesnel Lake, home to one-third of British Columbia's legendary Fraser River sockeye salmon. The dam, a 40-meter wall of rocks and dirt, gave way without warning, unleashing a torrent of mud.
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