Meters Of Tailings Research Articles

Upstream, Downstream: Iron Mining in Early Modern Japan and the Uneven Spread of Environmental Protection

This article examines disputes over iron mining in early modern Japan (1600–1868), focusing on how and why some communities had greater say in stopping or permitting environmental harm. Well before Japan became the first non-Western society to industrialize, mountain miners in the southwestern region of Chūgoku developed increasingly effective technologies for extracting Japan’s most abundant source of iron—iron sand found in granite rock. But their hydraulic methods involved sending more than a billion cubic meters of tailings into the region’s rivers, wreaking downstream havoc, from ruined crops to tainted drinking water. When downstream people pushed to curtail mining, two important social factors came into play. First, across ironmaking river basins, and in contrast to better-known modern cases, more affluent downstream plains communities bore the brunt of the damage that poorer mountain miners caused. Indeed, miners used their villages’ relative poverty to galvanize official support to continue mining. At the same time, in negotiating compromises, upstream and downstream inhabitants of different river basins also arrived at sharply different standards of what constituted an acceptable level of mining. These differences depended on the complex political geography of early modern Japan, in which some jurisdictions had much greater authority than others. All told, these disputes both reaffirm and cut against more familiar patterns found in modern cases, foreshadowing the uneven spread of industry’s harms across the social landscape, while also reflecting the distinctive mining technology, political culture, and geography of this early modern society.

Acoustic identification and classification of four dolphin species in the Brazilian marine area affected by the largest tailings dam failure disaster.

Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an increasingly used technique to access the occurrence, distribution, and abundance of cetaceans that may be visually unavailable most of the time. The largest tailings dam failure disaster occurred on 5 November 2015, when the Fundão dam collapsed, releasing over 50 million cubic meters of tailings into the Doce River basin; 14 days later, the tailings plume reached the Atlantic Ocean. PAM was implemented in the concerned area and cetacean species were acoustically identified. Whistles and clicks of visual and acoustic matches were used to predict and classify exclusive acoustic records through random forest models. The identified species were Guiana, rough-toothed, and bottlenose dolphins. Additionally, the franciscana, the most threatened cetacean in the western South Atlantic Ocean, was also acoustically identified. The whistle classifier had 86.9% accuracy with final frequency, duration, and maximum frequency ranked as the most important parameters. The clicks classifier had 86.7% accuracy with peak frequency and 3 dB bandwidth as the most important parameters for classifying species. Considering the potential effect of the increase in turbidity on sound transmission, such as attenuation, the presented classifier should be continuously improved with novel data collected from long-term acoustic monitoring.

Statistical process control in assessing water quality in the Doce river basin after the collapse of the Fundão dam (Mariana, Brazil).

The process of extracting information from data generated in environmental monitoring programs is often carried out using statistical tools, with Statistical Process Control (SPC) showing great potential for application in environmental monitoring. In November 2015, millions of cubic metres of tailings were dumped into the basin of the River Doce with the collapse of the Fundão dam. A study of the impact of this incident requires new approaches in data monitoring and processing, so it was sought to evaluate, using SPC tools, changes in water quality in the basin of the River Doce following the collapse of the dam. Using process charts and the process capability index (PCI), water quality parameters in the Doce and Carmo rivers were evaluated between 2009 and 2020. There, turbidity has improved since 2018, and Mn since 2016. Control charts showed that by December 2020 dissolved Fe was still not within normal pre-event fluctuation patterns. The PCI value showed that the situation worsened after the event for each of the parameters, with the lowest values for Mn and E. coli. By using a reference period, SPC makes it possible to infer the permanence of the impact of extreme pollution on the waterbody, which can be used in the routine monitoring of water quality in such events.

Economic and financial consequences of process accidents in Brazil: Multiple case studies

Along with the advancement of process industries, there has been an increase in process safety accidents (as defined in the 1970s), which often cause deaths and damages to properties, communities, the environment, and the local economy. Process safety management (PSM) and legislation that can minimize dangerous incidents due to the failure of process operations are still insufficient in Brazil. Thus, this work aims to quantify the economic and financial consequences of three different process safety accidents using a case study methodology. The two first cases reflect extreme situations of accidents involving ruptures in tailings dams, which were used to store wastewater generated during ore processing (Mariana and Brumadinho). The Mariana dam disaster caused about 40 × 106 m3 of mining waste to be released, covering ∼1500 ha. The accident had a significant impact on the environment and economy throughout the Doce River Basin, resulting in a loss of US$5.28 billion. The Brumadinho disaster resulted in 270 deaths and 11 missing people, as well as severe environmental damage and property loss. Thirteen million cubic meters of tailings were released, damaging a 270-hectare region, and contaminating the Atlantic Forest natural reserves and the Paraopeba River. The total estimated cost, including production losses, fines, and damages, is US$13.48 billion. The third case is the fire at the Santos port terminal (São Paulo) caused by Ultracargo, which highlights the need for PSM policies and legislation because fire accidents are common in Brazil. Only the Port of Santos experienced at least one major fire case per year from 2013 to 2020. The fire spread to six storage tanks, consuming ∼30,000 m3 of fuel, resulting in a US$91.91 million loss for the company. The fire burned for nine days, causing delays in shipments, and a 4.3% reduction in agricultural exports during that period. Industrial process accidents, regardless of the severity of the accident or the type of product handled, have consistent economic and financial impacts on companies and the surrounding regions where they operate. This study exposes Brazil’s vulnerability in terms of process safety control and product storage. Therefore, Brazil has the opportunity to explore this topic further.

Estética freiriana no filme “O amigo do rei”, de André D`Elia: notas para se pensar um cinema crítico e libertador

This work analyzes the film “The Friend of the King” (2019), by director André D`Elia. It identifies ethical and aesthetic elements for thinking in a critical cinema based on Paulo Freire’s philosophy. In dialogue with his theses, it proposes a hermeneutics that addresses the situation of the effects of the Mariana dam rupture (called “Fundão”, November, 5th, 2015). The film operates between fiction and documentary gender; reveals behind-the-scenes digging of iron ore from asset debris, testimonials from mining officials, academics and others, details of the dam rupture that dumped 40 million cubic meters of tailings from the Doce River at its mouth in Regency, Espírito Santo coast. The “toxic mud” killed human lives, their stories, dreams and drastically reduced an ability to maintain a local biodiversity. The film gives voice to the exploited / excluded of official history and reveals its power when analyzed under a Paulo Freire worldview. That justifies its affiliation with a critical social practice, whose objective is to surpass or reduce the performance by the hegemonic cultural, orchestrated by industry cultural. The film denounces crimes committed, injustices and manifestation for reparation by the victims, many of which have not yet been identified.

Recycling Lepidolite from Tantalum–Niobium Mine Tailings by a Combined Magnetic–Flotation Process Using a Novel Gemini Surfactant: From Tailings Dams to the “Bling” Raw Material of Lithium

On January 25, 2019, the tailings dam at Vale’s Corrego do Feijao mine (Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil) ruptured, releasing about 12 million cubic meters of tailings, killing over 240 people and ...

Methods for Postdisaster Impact Assessment: A Case Study of the Impacts of the Fundão Dam Failure on Terrestrial Species Threatened with Extinction.

The Fundão tailings dam held back approximately 50 million cubic meters of tailings from an Fe ore mine in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The dam failed on 5 November 2015, releasing tailings into the Rio Doce watershed and causing an environmental disaster in a biodiversity hotspot. To guide conservation action following the event, Brazilian authorities demanded an impact assessment focused on terrestrial species threatened by extinction. Postdisaster impact assessment is substantially more challenging than predevelopment impact assessment. Predisaster baseline data were sparse, and much was unknown about how the Fundão dam failure impacted terrestrial species threatened with extinction. Baseline reconstruction and impact pathway validation and characterization was critical. Ecosystem reconstruction revealed that 1580 ha of terrestrial ecosystems were destroyed, including approximately 480 ha of Atlantic rainforest. Collaboration with local experts identified 346 species of vertebrates, invertebrates, and vascular plants threatened with extinction that were impacted or potentially impacted. Species composition and impacts varied within 4 distinct segments of the Rio Doce watershed. Nine potential impact pathways were identified using data and literature review combined with information provided by regulators, experts, and media. Not all were valid. Validating and characterizing each pathway within each watershed segment involved data evaluation, an ecological risk screening, and field assessments. Impact pathway evaluation proved critical to dispelling misconception, accurately understanding postdisaster impacts, and directing conservation action; the importance of this step cannot be overemphasized. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;16:676-680. © 2020 SETAC.

Analysis of the Physical Integrity of Earth Dams from Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) in Brazil

Dams are structures that barrier rivers and streams for a variety of purposes. The constant maintenance of these structures is essential, since a possible accident can lead to damage of catastrophic proportions. In November 2015 in the city of Mariana, Minas Gerais (MG), Brazil, a tailings dam burst and spilled 56 million cubic meters of tailings. In addition to victimize 19 people, the event caused material, economic and environmental damage—it is considered the largest environmental disaster of Brazil. This research presents a cheap and quickly applied alternative for investigation of seepage of water in earth dams, built with distinct embankment materials—one dam composed of predominantly silt and clay soil and the other predominantly composed of sandy soil. The research methods used were: geotechnical tests as gradation test, permeability test with the Guelph permeameter method and the application of the (DC) resistivity geophysical method from the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) technique in Wenner array. Three ERT lines were positioned parallel to the longitudinal axis at each dam. The data are presented in 2D and 3D geophysical images with electrical resistivity values modeled. Based on the physical principle of electrolytic conduction, i.e., decrease in electrical resistance in materials or siliceous minerals in moisture conditions compared to the material in the dry state, the results revealed low-resistivity zones restricted to some points, associated with water infiltration in the transverse direction. The results indicate saturation restricted to some points and low permeability, at the present time, an installation of piping processes.

Analysis of the impact on vegetation caused by abrupt deforestation via orbital sensor in the environmental disaster of Mariana, Brazil

The failure of the Fundão Dam in Mariana, more precisely in the subdistrict of Bento Rodrigues, state of Minas Gerais (Brazil) on November 5th, 2015, is considered to be "the biggest environmental tragedy in the country's history." About thirty-four million cubic meters of tailings were dumped into the river where, another 16 million continued to reach the Atlantic ocean. This disaster seriously affected the flora, fauna, economic activities and people's lives, including the loss of human lives. Remote sensing allows mapping the variability of terrain properties, such as vegetation, water and geology, both in space and time, offering a synoptic view and useful environmental information in future decision making. In this way, this research aims to analyze the impacts of the failure of the Fundão Dam in the municipality of Mariana-MG on the vegetation cover, by means of remote sensing techniques and analysis of digital processing of orbital optical images. In order to analyze the soil cover, Unmixing Espectral Linear Model (UELM) was used in order to separate soil, shade and vegetation classes. Subsequently, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classification method was applied, followed by Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The results showed a loss of 13.02% of the vegetation, about 1289 ha, and a reduction of 68.57% of shade (water), approximately 1347 ha. The UELM showed to be effective in the separation of each image-fraction, being an important stage for the success of the classification. The EVI was the index that best described the vegetation deficit in the affected areas spilling the sludge from waste.

Microbial metagenomics of oil sands tailings ponds: small bugs, big data.

Modern molecular biology techniques, particularly new DNA sequencing methods, have opened our eyes to the fact that microorganisms live in an extraordinary range of natural environments, from desert soils and boiling hot springs to Antarctic ice, in ancient sea beds and under the surface of some rocks, inside leaves and in the human gut, among others. They also colonize manmade environments, such as the enormous oil sands tailings ponds in northeastern Alberta, Canada, that are commonly reported by the press as being toxic to all life. Although the tailings ponds may not be hospitable to higher organisms, all eight ponds that we have analyzed to date (comprising nearly 100 samples) harbour large, diverse, and complex communities of microbes (An et al. 2013; Penner and Foght 2010). In fact, we have found that microbes typically are present at about 1 million cells per millilitre of oil sands tailings, which scales to a total of about a sextillion (10 21 ) cells in the nearly 1 billion cubic metres of tailings currently retained in the Athabasca Oil Sands region. That approaches the estimated number of stars in the Universe! This begs the questions: Which microbes live in the tailings ponds? What are they doing there? Where did they come from? Are they important in situ, either impacting current tailings management or eventual reclamation strategies for the tailings ponds? To address such questions required substantial long-term funding to develop methods for analyzing large suites of refractory samples using nextgeneration DNA sequencing platforms. Genome Canada and corporate partners from the energy industry provided that support via “Metagenomics for Greener Production and Extraction of Hydrocarbon Energy” (the Hydrocarbon Metagenomics Project; www.hydrocarbonmetagenomics.com). The project investigated several aspects of fossil fuel production, including coal bed methane production and souring of conventional petroleum reservoirs, but this presentation focuses on oil sands. Media images of tailings ponds typically are aerial photographs showing murky water and floating bitumen. However, beneath that shallow water layer lies the vast bulk of the tailings: a thick gel-like suspension of mineral and organic waste generated by aqueous extraction of surface-mined oil sands ores. The ores primarily comprise sand, fine clay particles, and adherent bitumen (a viscous crude oil) that is extracted by using hot alkaline water plus hydrocarbon solvents such as naphtha, a refined product similar to kerosene and comprising hundreds of individual compounds. Most of the solvent (>99%) is recovered after extraction and re-used. The waste from the extraction process comprises a thin slurry of water, sand, clay, unextracted bitumen, and the unrecovered solvent: this is the material deposited and retained in the tailings ponds pending reclamation. The sand settles out of suspension rapidly and is collected for other purposes, but the suspended clays settle extremely slowly, requiring years or decades to achieve the consistency of toothpaste while the water (and some bitumen) rises to the pond surface for re-use. Meanwhile, microbes indigenous to the ores and the water that have survived the extraction process and those that are introduced through rainfall and blowing dust become established in the ponds. Because the vast majority of material in the tailings ponds is anaerobic, most of the microbes colonizing the ponds grow without access to oxygen (via sulfate reduction or methane generation) and some are even killed by exposure to air. What are these microbes doing in the ponds? The community composition and activity are dictated by the carbon sources available to support microbial growth. The predominant mass of organic material in the ponds is unextracted bitumen, but, because it is virtually nondegradable (like asphalt), it is not a significant carbon source for the microbes. Instead, the much smaller proportion of unrecovered solvent entrained in the fresh tailings is the major carbon input supporting growth of the indigenous microbes. More specifically, only certain components of the solvents are degraded under anaerobic conditions, typically only slowly over months or years.

Reactive Transport Modeling of AMD Release and Attenuation at the Fault Lake Tailings Area, Falconbridge, Ontario

Numerical simulations of the Fault Lake Tailings were conducted to assess the long-term impact of AMD-generation on downgradient receptors. The effects of impoundment geometry, contrasting permeability, water content, and mineralogy of tailings and native sediments were considered. Simulation results suggest that over a time period of 1,000 years only the top three meters of tailings become oxidized and that AMD is preferentially released at the periphery of the impoundment. Although the permeability of the tailings is lower than that of the aquifer and groundwater flow is deflected around the deep saturated tailings mass, AMD is not inhibited from percolating into the aquifer, because the bulk of the tailings are located within the vadose zone. The carbonate content of the underlying material likely provides sufficient buffering capacity to attenuate most metals and neutralize pH over the long-term.

The Aznalcóllar Tailings Dam Accident - A Case Study

The Aznalcollar tailings dam owned by Boliden Apirsa failed on April 25, 1998, releasing approximately 1.3 million cubic metres of fine pyrite tailings and 5.5 million cubic metres of tailings water into the nearby river systems. Approximately 2,600 hectares of river banks and agricultural land were affected by tailings deposition and an additional 2,000 hectares were affected by tailings water. Apirsa closed the breach in the dam within one day and within a week commenced tailings removal. Responsibility for the clean-up was divided between Apirsa and the Spanish authorities. By the end of November 1998, Apirsa had completed the clean-up in its sector, an area containing 80% of the discharged tailings. A consultant engaged by Apirsa, Eptisa, concluded that the failure occurred as a result of a 60 metre lateral displacement along a bedding plane in a blue marl clay formation some 14 metres below the dam. Another Apirsa consultant, Principia-EQE, concluded that several deficiencies in the work carried out by the designers of the dam in 1978 and by the independent consultants who studied the stability of the dam in 1996 contributed to the failure. In responding to the accident, Apirsa positioned itself as part of the solution, taking an open and proactive posture in its dealings with the media, the general public and the Spanish authorities. Apirsa built support for its environmental assessment and remediation activities by subjecting its plans to external scientific peer review and applying principles of continuous improvement to their implementation. Apirsa's response to the accident can usefully serve as a model for others faced with adverse circumstances of the magnitude of the failure of the Aznalcollar tailings dam.

Use of the pocketbook mussel, Lampsilis ventricosa, for monitoring heavy metal pollution in an Ozark stream.

Missouri has been recognized for lead production since the early 1800's and has been the primary producer of lead for the US since 1902. Huge piles of coarse to finely ground dolomitic residue (tailings) occur throughout the Old Lead Belt. Tailings contain relatively high concentrations of heavy metals and have resulted in the contamination of stream ecosystems. In 1977 a dam on the abandoned Desloge tailings pond in the Old Lead Belt ruptured and an estimated 90,000 cubic meters of tailings entered Big River. Erosion of tailings into Big River continue from this site as well as from other tailings piles in the region. The objective of this study was to determine which tailings ponds were the major sources of heavy metals in Big River by using caged pocketbook mussels (Lampsilis ventricosa C. Barnes 1823). The pocketbook mussel was selected for this study because it occurs throughout the Big River drainage basin, and it is large, and relatively unaffected by handling and confinement for extended periods of time.