Facilities in Ireland that store toxic mining waste use technology dating from the ”first World War" that does “not meet industry standards”, a conference hosted by An Taisce has heard.
Geophysicist Steven Emerman, a specialist in mine waste and hydrology, said the use of outdated mining waste-storage facilities, which had been banned in several countries, was “quite common in Ireland”.
The State of Mining in Ireland conference, held in Dublin on Sunday, was attended by communities opposed to mining or mining waste-storage facilities associated with the Aughinish Alumina refinery in Limerick, Tara lead-zinc mines in Meath and the proposed Curraghinalt Gold mine, also known as the Sperrin Mountains mine, in Tyrone.
The plants use, or propose the use of, “upstream” dams for storing mining waste, Emerman said. He added that these dams have been denounced by the mining industry and have been implicated in some of the worst toxic-waste disasters associated with mining, resulting in deaths and destruction of habitat.
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The dams are used to store “tailings”, which are “the wet, crushed rock particles that remain after the commodity of value has been removed”. He said they are “almost always toxic”.
Ore deposits of commodities such as gold, copper or lithium are “heavily depleted”, he said.
Emerman added: “Those ancient, high-grade deposits are long, long gone. Nothing like that exists anywhere anymore.
“What is being produced by the modern mine is very little commodity. A modern mine’s principal product is toxic waste. That is what is being produced, with the commodity as a very minor subproduct. It is quite rare for any modern industrial process, except mining, to produce so much waste.”
Upstream dams are used because they require a minimum amount of construction material, making them inexpensive. But they are particularly susceptible to failure, Emerman said.
“What can go wrong is the catastrophic failure of the tailings storage facility.”
These facilities must be maintained “in perpetuity”, he said. As humans have no experience in designing something to last forever, “catastrophic failure is guaranteed”. Because of this, he says the facilities are “a curse on future generations”.
Knowing these risks, Emerman underlined the importance of asking pertinent questions.
“Who is getting the benefit from this commodity? And who is suffering the damages and bearing the risks from the production of this commodity? Is it the same people who benefit and who suffer the damages and bear the risks?
“If you have one group of people who get the benefits and another who bears their risks and the damages, that is simply profoundly unjust, and there’s no basis for even asking this question: ‘is the commodity worth the price?’.”
