The myth that modern tailings dams are immune to malfunction and failure is evidenced by a series of new reports on the Philex tailings dam. Here are links and extracts from two of the reports on this facility:
Philex unstable tailings. MANILA – Residents of Benguet province and all communities downriver of Agno and San Roque dam continue to live in danger from the accumulated toxic wastes of Philex Mining Corporation. Although Philex has shut down since Aug. 1 its sole gold mining operations – and it tells the public the mines would remain closed until the company has attended to the reported cracks and resulting leakages from its mine tailings pond – communities living near the site said they hope Philex would just shut down its mining operations permanently.
Rivers Cleaned up while repair continues: BAGUIO CITY—Philex Mining Corp. has deployed a cleanup crew to Benguet tributaries to remove chemicals and sediments discharged from its tailings dam at its Padcal mine in Itogon, Benguet, on Aug. 1, a company official said on Friday. A government team sent by Environment Secretary Ramon Paje to oversee the repairs of the tailings dam joined the crew at the waterways that flow toward the Agno and Balog river channels, lawyer Eduardo Aratas, Philex legal officer, said. In an Aug. 10 statement, Philex said the teams were tasked to prevent silt from reaching the convergence area going to the San Roque Dam in San Manuel, Pangasinan. The firm’s Tailings Dam No. 3 in Itogon accidentally discharged nontoxic water and sediments that was stopped “in less than 48 hours,” after its discovery on Aug. 1, Philex said in a statement.
There are plenty more reports accessible via Google search. None really gets to the nub of what is going on. There are vague statements on failure, seepage, sediments in rivers, non-toxic discharges, and penstock failures. My first take is that seepage occurred at penstocks and water and sediments flowed into river.
Now we can be racialist and brand this as just another example of third-world country practice. Or maybe it is just the sloppy way tailings are managed in Indonesia—they are not Anglo-Saxons after all. It is just one of those Catholic, or is it Muslim, places where corruption is rampant and modern tailings engineering practices absent.
We can be historical and say this is old fashioned practice not repeated by nice international companies like Anglo American with its non-anglo and non-american roots. This could not conceivable occur in nice white-dominate protestant countries.
Yet the company’s website brags thus:
The Padcal Mine’s Environmental Management System (EMS) sustained its ISO 14001 Certification, showcasing the Company’s advocacy for responsible mining. The confirmation of the Continued Certification was based on the successful audit results of the Second Surveillance Audit by the Certification International (CI) last June 2010. Since 2002, the Company has maintained its ISO 14001 Certification, a testimony to its firm commitment to operate and mine responsibly.
They go further and maintain:
Philex, as a socially and environmentally responsible Philippine company striving for excellence in mineral resource development, is committed to the continual improvement of its operations, to minimize adverse environmental impacts, to comply with applicable legislations and other requirements, and to promote environmental awareness and commitment among its workers at all levels.
So they are committed and socially responsible. But in the nature of things, things go wrong. And usually with a vengeance. The goddess of Hubris is a vengeful goddess and in cahoots with the Black Swan. To the extent that share price has dropped 32 percent. The market is goddess, guided by the hand of infinitely wise investors, and always right, so we have a good measure of the credibility of the official announcements.
The point of all this is that their lawyers fucked up and let all this news get out. The real and only difference between this company and other mining companies is that their lawyers are incompetent. Most modern mining companies have lawyers who are able to stop new reports of this type from getting out and being blogged about. I have three in my back pocket that I cannot write about because skilled and vicious lawyers succeed in what they are paid plenty to do.
So let this stand as a challenge to all those sanctimonious pronouncers who say modern tailings dams do not fail. Let them explain away the difference between Indonesia and Alaska (Pebble Mine) in non-racialistic, not societal terms and let us judge.
We often read of ferry boats that sink and kill hundreds in Africa or Indonesia, therefore we must outlaw the ferry boats that travel between Vancouver and Vancouver Island, clearly they are unsafe. Some financial advisors run Ponzi schemes so therefore we should shut down all investment houses, clearly they are all crooks.
In your rush to tarnish Pebble you omit the first step of judging the reasons for the Philex tailings dam failure on its own merit You’d think an engineer would want some facts before making a knee-jerk reaction.
So let this stand as a challenge to all those sanctimonious pronouncers who say that all modern tailings dams fail.
We all know that lots of board room and media information about social responsibility and commitment to the environment can be a lot of rhetoric. The rubber hits the road in the front line supervisors and employees that may or may not want to report something on their shift. This happens in third world, second world, and first world countries.
I guess you’re saying that the role of lawyers is to make sure that the information doesn’t get out to the rest of the world when something happens. Perhaps you do not recognize that a really responsible company will ensure that the lawyers don’t get their way but rather the company owns up to the problem and works to fix it rather than cover it up. I guess you are working for companies that cover their asses if you feel that is the way to handle things.
Not all tailings dams fail and not all companies hide their problems Jack.
If pointing out the fallibilities of a company and speaking about racialism, it helps to do a little research first. Philex is in the Phillipines.
Not Indonesia.
[...] Caldwell points out on his blog that Philex had obtained a raft of ISO certifications demonstrating its commitment to responsible [...]
I am amazed that anyone with experience in this business would say that good lawyers are the reason mine tailings failures don’t reach the public press. Tailings dams failures are not unique in mining. There are plenty of other mine failures, so if, as you say good lawyers are able to suppress bad news on dams, then why not other aspects of a mine? Hogwash is what I say.
Dave; I’m not sure if you are referring to me, but Africa isn’t in the Philipines either. I was pointing out where ferry sinkings had occurred not where Philex is located.
A bullish blunder from this author to rule-out any cause of the tailings facility failure at Philex to say tailings facilities are not managed properly in other countries. In the first place he don’t have an idea the intensity of rainfall the mine experience at the time of the incident. All places around this planet are experiencing massive record breaking flooding even uplands not visited by this calamity in the last 100 yrs are already flooded. In fairness to the management of Philex, I believe they exerted their best efforts mitigating measure to over-come this dam failure but mother nature’s force is hard to impede. This is really an eye-opener for all of us to protect mother nature in a sustainable manner.
Observer – I was referring to the original article.
I do not know what made Caldwell conclude that the tailings that spilled over the Penstock as Toxic. He does not have a full chemical analysis of the tailings spilled. It is just a conclusion that all tailings are Toxic.
Is it Hubris to say that a company is committed to comply with environmental laws and strive to excell?
ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH?
An initial report from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) has revealed that total suspended solids (TSS), which can smother plant and aquatic life, stood at 2,170 milligrams per liter (mg/L) based on samples collected from the San Roque dam’s tailrace on Aug. 3
with due respect, the corporate legal of Philex has done the most prudent thing, that’s corporate responsibility 101..
[...] Jack Caldwell points out on his blog that adverse publicity surrounding the failings of Philex’s tailings damns attest more to the [...]
Smart way of seeing things – I am a bit more of a black and white guy, myself
I really do not know what the professional background of Jack Caldwell is. But as an Engineer, we all know that man made structures are designed with certain parameters. In dams not only tailings dams the parameters are basically Intensity of Rain Events, Earthquake Intensity, Groundwater Conditions of the area Underlying Rock Quality of the Dam structure among other things. If the design Parameters are breached due to a natural occurrence,like a Dam which was designed for an intensity 9 earthquake will naturally fail when hit with an earthquake stronger than intensity 9. The Philex dam was designed with parameters which the design engineers based on available data .The tailings dams of Philex with stood the 1990 Earthquake which if I remember correctly was an Intensity 8.5, which toppled many buildings in the Baguio district. The rain event which caused the penstock to overflow was clearly beyond the design parameter of the dam. Failure of man made structures will occur in any part of the world if their design parameters are breached. There is no hubris involved. It is just that we cannot predict what nature will unleash in the future.