Co-chair of Water in Mining 2016 considers it necessary to make water use more efficient and sustainable in mining.
What are the main issues in the relationship between water and mining?
A big issue is water scarcity especially in Chile and that means competition for water between different sectors in Chilean mining. In Australia, nevertheless, the problem has been more of water excess. A couple of years ago, we had floods and some of the mines were closed down for a significant amount of time which means production losses.
In Chile there were also unexpected floods recently in the north and it is important to consider that the mining infrastructure wasn´t design for that kind of natural disaster. Of course we have to consider climate change and extreme events, because scarcity of water and floods are expected to become more frequent in the future and that is a big difficulty in terms of mining and designing. Another important issue to consider is pollution risks when managing some operations in closed mines.
How important is the issue of water for mining?
Water in mining is actually more important now than it has ever been. Mines are closely scrutinized in terms of their water performance unlike some other industries. As a consequence, mines work really hard to improve their water performance, reducing water use and increasing control of pollution.
Communities are also becoming more and more knowledgeable about potential risks and mines face to respond to that in terms of legislations and working with communities permanently.
What are the main impacts of mining on water quality and what is being done to reduce them? What new technologies exist?
In large scale mines, the main issues are pollution, salt generation, assets generation and metals. For example, when you break rocks and built spoil heaps on mine sites, it exposes a lot of the rocks surface and it gets washed off salt from the rocks and that can have some ecological impacts. Very often mines have to store the salty water until they can discharge it to rivers. Acid mine drainage has been a problem as well, especially in closed mines. Mining companies have various types of solutions which try to isolate the risk. It is a work in progress.
It is important to mention that there are 3 classifications of improvement. The first one is the technological effectiveness of water treatment; the second one is management of mine sites being more adaptable and ready to respond to changes, like climate ones; and the most important one, are the new approaches of mining methods so mines don´t need so much water. Also, finding new sources of water is very important to reduce the competition for water.
You will be Co-Chair of Waterinmining 2016, what are your expectations for this version of the Congress?
It is a nice environment for people from academia, mining companies, consultants and suppliers to all exchange knowledge and different visions of the mining industries, as well as ideas about the future, opportunities, risks and solutions.
How do Congresses such as Waterinmining 2016 contribute to a more sustainable use of water and management of mining?
The core is the communication of ideas in mining methods and technologies. Managing, networking and research come together to continuously improve the mining industry.
