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A tailings dam is typically an earth-fill embankment dam used to store byproducts of mining operations after separating the ore from the gangue. Tailings can be liquid, solid, or a slurry of fine particles, and are usually highly toxic and potentially radioactive.
The dam will hold 570,000,000 metric tons (560,997,721 long tons; 628,317,447 short tons) of tailings and the mine is expected to produce 546,000,000 metric tons (537,376,764 long tons; 601,861,976 short tons). [3] Upstream of the dam, a series of channels and embankments divert water from the Ayash River from entering the reservoir.
Tailings dam failures involving significant ecological damage include: the Jagersfontein Tailings Dam Collapse, South Africa in September 2022, was a structural failure of a tailings dam used by a stockpile mineral reprocessor, resulting in a mudslide through the town and surrounding farmland.
In Brazil, more than 250 people died in 2019 when the Vale SA's Brumadinho upstream tailings dam collapsed, flooding the nearby community with mine waste. Miners need more engineers to meet new ...
On average, worldwide, there is one big accident involving a tailings dam each year. [22] Other disasters caused by tailings dam failures are, the 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill and the Ajka alumina plant accident. In 2015, the iron ore tailings dam failure at the Germano mine complex in Minas Gerais, Brazil, was the country's biggest ...
The Bruno Creek Tailings Impoundment is a tailings dam on Bruno Creek, 19 mi (31 km) southwest of Challis in Custer County, Idaho. It serves to store tailings for the nearby Thompson Creek Mine . At 550 ft (168 m) tall, it is the second tallest center-line tailings dam in the world.
On April 16, 1958, with mining and processing plants still operational, a combination of poor design, neglect, heavy rainfall and a reported earthquake caused the #7 tailings dam at Mailuu-Suu to fail. About 50% of the entire volume of the dam flowed into the swift Mailuu-Suu River, only 30 metres (98 ft) downhill from the breach.
The Mount Polley mine's tailings facility experienced a dam breach and tailings spill that began 4 August 2014. The four square kilometre tailings pond spilled an estimated 25 billion litres of contaminated materials into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, Quesnel Lake , and Cariboo River, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for ...