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Waste and Tailings

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Waste and Tailings The Gold Fields Integrated Annual Report 2018 103 LICENCE AND REPUTATION Waste and tailings The most significant waste materials Gold Fields operations with active TSF management produced by our operations are downstreams/centreline tailings dams The mining industry’s TSFs are in the tailings, waste rock, chemical waste are Cerro Corona, Damang and spotlight following the catastrophic and hydrocarbon waste. By Tarkwa. tailings failure at Vale’s Feijão iron managing these wastes responsibly, The new Gruyere TSF, currently in ore mine in Brumadinho, Brazil, in we minimise the environmental and construction, is also a downstream January 2019, which resulted in potential social impact, so as to TSF. Gold Fields has only three over 300 deaths. This follows the maintain our licence to operate. operations where upstream tailings 19 fatalities during the Samarco TSF are being used, being South Deep, failure in 2015, and significant All of our operations have tailings Tarkwa and Granny Smith. environmental damage after the management plans in place, Mt Polley tailings dam collapse including closure and post-closure As two of our sites, South Deep and in 2014. management plans. In total, as at Granny Smith, are located in relatively end-2018, our ten operations dry regions, limited amounts of water After the Samarco accident, the (including three JV sites) contained need to be stored on the facilities, ICMM members developed a Tailings 33 tailings dams, of which 14 were significantly reducing the risk of Position Statement in 2016 and active and one under construction. saturation on the dams. Tarkwa’s approved a tailings aspirational goals With regards to active TSFs, Gold upstream tailings dams in Ghana roadmap in late 2018. Gold Fields’ Fields currently has two in-pit tailings have been constructed from imported Group Tailings Management dams operating at Agnew and St fill materials, and are designed Guidelines are aligned to the ICMM Ives, five downstreams/centreline assuming worst-case scenario Tailings Position Statement. The tailings dams and seven upstream conditions, to ensure the guidelines were strengthened during tailings dams. embankments remain stable 2017 with the inclusion of additional throughout both the wet and dry performance guidance and minimum seasons, and also for the life of the assessment criteria. Subsequent to facility. the Brumadinho tragedy, the ICMM agreed to establish an independent panel of experts to develop an international standard for tailings facilities for its member companies. METHODS OF TAILINGS CONSTRUCTION All Gold Fields’ TSFs, as well as associated pipeline and pumping Upstream infrastructure, are subject to an independent, external audit every Supernatant pond Embankment consisting three years – or more frequently mostly of tailings where required by local material circumstances or regulations – as well as regular inspections and formal annual Engineer of Record reviews. Tailings material Starter dyke Downstream A number of improvement areas were recommended, including: Supernatant pond Embankment consisting mostly of fill material, ■■ Seismicity design considerations such as rock ■■ Appointment of an Engineer of Impervious layer and waste Record for each TSF ■■ Dam break assessments Tailings material Starter dyke ■■ Update of emergency response plans Source: Jon Engels www.tailings.info/disposal/conventional.htm ■■ TSF seepage management and control The two most common designs for a raised tailings embankments are upstream and downstream TSFs. A downstream tailings facility is one where the new embankment raise is constructed and supported beyond the downstream slope. In addition to closing out these Downstream TSFs may have supernatant water ponded against the embankment, identified gaps during 2018, Gold as shown in the diagram, or they may have a tailings beach. Fields also embarked on a In upstream tailings dams, each new embankment raise is constructed partially on programme to further improve the embankment immediately below and partially on the consolidated tailings operational safety of its TSFs, beach adjacent to the embankment. including moving away from the construction of upstream facilities .
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