The recent evolution of mine closure planning has established clear guidelines for the mining industry, which should provide regulators with a solid framework for assessing mine closure plans.
Understanding the drivers of regulatory thinking and the possible assessment and enforcement strategies of the regulator, should also be helpful in providing direction about the approaches the industry should take in developing and presenting mine closure plans, and operating existing sites.
The role of an environmental regulator generally is to implement the environmental protection and conservation policies of the government and protect the public interest.
These observations and ideas are based on my experience having advised two state mining-environmental authorities of Australia (Queensland and Victoria) and the Chilean mining regulator Servico Nacional de Geologia and Mineria (SERNAGEOMIN) about the assessment and audit of mine closure plans, financial assurances and the environmental performance of the mining sector.
Mine closure planning has evolved over the past couple of decades in Australia and other major mining jurisdictions from the life-of-mine plans that focussed on mined land rehabilitation strategies.
Only in the past few years has there been a more formal approach to mine closure planning involving processes such as the evaluation of post-mining land use options, closure action plans, risk assessment, 3rd-party cost estimation, stakeholder consultation and the use of sustainability assessment tools.
The effective implementation of mine closure practices is fundamental for the mining industry to demonstrate its ability to comply with the principles of sustainable development. Those principles are progressively being embodied in government legislation and regulation. Hence, the principles are the major drivers of all regulatory thinking, and pervade the way in which mine closure plans are assessed.
While there are now clear guidelines for industry to develop mine closure plans both in terms of their content and the processes recommended for their development, there appears to be confusion in some parts of the regulatory sector about how to assess a Mine Closure Plan and how to determine the things that really matter for governments and the communities they represent. This can consequently create confusion in the industry.
Environmental regulation and decision-making is often framed around the principles of sustainable development. Generally, these require a regulator to balance their decisions around the requirements of long and short term environmental, economic, social and equity considerations.
This should be reflected in the regulation for mine closure, the assessment of mine closure plans and enforcement actions.
Regulators should:
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Develop appropriate legislation and policy;
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Focus on the important things that matter when they are assessing mine closure plans; and
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Look for early signs of good and poor performance at existing operations, and enforce improvement where necessary to ensure that existing operations are ´mining for closure’.
As a case in point, there is a real opportunity for Chile to develop effective mine closure legislation, develop capacity and achieve balanced outcomes for the environment, economic development and welfare of the public.
Chile needs legislation that is specific to mine closure, provides certainty to industry and the public about the desired environmental outcomes, and protects the public against future liabilities of abandoned sites. However, the legislation must be developed in consultation with industry and the community so that it does not result in an acceleration of the abandonment of mines.
The technical aspects include the making safe of open pits and ensuring they have some beneficial post-mining land use, waste dump design for geotechnical and erosional stability, management of acid-forming materials and the rehabilitation of tailings storage facilities.
Regulators need to use enforcement strategies to ensure a culture of compliance, including inspection and audit of mine sites to ensure the use of best practice methods, review of environmental monitoring results and evidence of community engagement. Enforcing changes to operations now, if they are not ´mining for closure’ (mining that will enable effective and efficient mine closure in compliance with the accepted mine closure plan) is essential to lower the risk to the environment and the public.
Regulators should ensure there is effective legislation and policies for mine closure. In Chile especially, laws are needed to provide the legislative basis for effective mine closure planning. Such legislation needs to consider the long and short term environmental, economic, social and equity issues, and the need to act in the public interest.
However, equity principles suggest that regulators need to take special care not to impose legislation without consultation with key stakeholders, which in this case especially includes the mining industry.
Ill-considered legislation could have the effect of imposing costs that would cause otherwise viable mining operations to close without the required level of closure planning and without the necessary safety, environmental and social management closure strategies being implemented. Such an imposition might actually cause the abandonment of mine sites, which is exactly what such legislation would want to avoid.
Good mine closure regulation would (1) define the objectives of mine closure; (2) define the processes for the submittal and assessment of mine closure plans; (3) define the required contents of a mine closure plan; (4) establish the requirements for financial guarantees, and the acceptable form of the financial guarantee, and (5) specify the regulatory processes for ensuring that the commitments in the plans are implemented.
Regulators should focus on the things that matter when they assess mine closure plans, and rely on the use of best practices to ensure that the risks from mine closure are as low as reasonably practical.
Likewise, industry should focus on these issues to ensure compliance with government regulation, protection of the public interest and successful regulatory assessments.
© Sinclair Knight Merz
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Who does this affect?
Regulators and mining professionals involved in the formulation and assessment of mine closure plans
What do I need to do?
Understand the drivers of regulatory thinking and possible assessment and enforcement strategies to assist in the development and assessment of Mine Closure Plans and the operation of existing sites.
Author: David Welsh
David is Operation Centre Manager, Water and Environment, in SKM’s Santiago, Chile office. David has extensive experience and knowledge of environmental management and environmental best practices in the mining, water resources, power and petroleum industries especially in relation to environmental management of open cut mines, minesite rehabilitation, site remediation and minesite water management.
© Sinclair Knight Merz
Requests to re-publish achieve articles should be made here