Chapter 15 - Closure and Rehabilitation of Gold-Processing Plants

Abstract

Mine closure has become a focus area for the mining industry over the past 20years due largely to pressures of the past, when closure was all too frequently poorly executed, creating a negative perception of the industry in the eyes of the general public and resulting in governments regulating and implementing enforceable closure planning and monetary provisioning to help ensure the indiscretions or the past are not repeated. This chapter outlines the aspects to be considered and addressed in one area of a mining operation's closure: the decommissioning and closure of processing plants. It draws on the practical experience of the authors, gained through development and execution of closure and rehabilitation strategies and plans, deconstruction of plant and infrastructure, and the work required to achieve an acceptable final land use and final property relinquishment. This, in essence, is the application of risk management to achieve outcomes acceptable to all stakeholders' objectives and expectations with respect to social, environmental, and heritage values through consideration of all the process phases, decommissioning, deconstruction, relocation, sale, recycling, scraping, elimination of contamination, and final rehabilitation through to property relinquishment. Many of these aspects are pertinent to the closure of other areas within a mining operation and so may be generally used with respect to the whole of a mine site.