Acid Mine Waste (Tailings) in Finland 1

[mnthesis]

Has anyone had any experience with acid tailings in Finland or Sweden?

The flat terrain makes it very difficult to find suitable storage locations, unless a tailings dam is built and the tailings are covered with water (due to their acid generating potential) for PERPETUITY.

This is obviously not a logical solution (to keep the tailings immersed in water forever) and so another option is to switch to a dry cover once operations have ceased.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience with acid tailings in flat, cold and wet regions, or if anyone knows of similar operations in Finland and can maybe point me towards any relevant cases or environmental guidelines.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Backfill]

mnthesis,

A quick search on 'finland mine tails' turned up a handy little site called

http://www.tailings.info.

Give them a try. One gem may be:

Elander, P. et al., 1998, 'MiMi - Prevention and control of pollution from mining waste products,' ISBN 91-89350-02-2.

The PDF of same is on the tailings info site.

There's gobs (no pun intended) of information out there on acid tails in cold climates. Minnesota (Mesabi/Reserve), Colorado(Urad/Climax), lots of places stateside with track records along those lines. Hard to miss Canada and Russia for substantial experience along those lines, though the historical Russian environmental regulations weren't as tight as North American or the rest of Europe. Try Greenland as well.

The national or state/provincial regulatory agencies will have lots of leads on information if you cannot find same directly from firms. Scandinavia has a long and successful mining history, so it should be relatively straightforward. Society of Mining Engineers (SME,

http://www.smenet.org)

will have plenty of links. Canadian Inst. of Mining (CIM), ditto.

Remember, in all things acid, bogs are fun and bugs are good.

 

[Kivi]

mnthesis,
Try searching out projects in northern Canada there are a slew of mines up there that likely have encountered similar problems and won't be in Finnish. Placing tails as a slurry requires dams and beaches, placing as a paste requires relatively flat areas as there is a slight angle of repose (less dams but water containment of course) There are locations as well that have dry stack tails. This is not my area of expertise, I'm an underground guy, Try posting this question in an appropriate thread in the civil, geotech or environmental areas of eng-tips.

Free advice is just that. If you need real help you ultimately have to pay for it. Try Amec, Golders, Knight Piesold etc. Can I ask what the name of the project is, I do have familiarity with Finland (Kivi=Rock)?

Good luck.

 

[Nevada]

You might want to try the folks at Boliden. I believe that they have dealt extensively with the issues related to the management of acidic tailings. In addition, they have experience with the problems posed by the degradation of thiosalts. You may want to refernce the proceedings from the "Securing the Future, International conference on mining and the environment" which was held in Skelleftea in 2001.