INCREASING RISKS: THE UNINTENDED EFFECT OF OUR TSF STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

PAPER ABSTRACT

Recent and continual failures of tailings storage facilities (TSFs), often resulting in catastrophic consequences, has led to calls for action from the industry, stakeholders and the public at large. Several standards and guidelines are being prepared at the time of writing, most notably a Global Tailings Standard, with the overall objective to reduce the rate of TSF failures globally. 

While better guidelines are certainly necessary, there are requirements that must be carefully followed in developing a document that has the ambition to become a standard. If such requirements are not fulfilled, the document can become ineffective or potentially have the opposite result to that which was intended. 

This paper discusses whether or not the Global Tailings Standard meets the requirements of the standards and analyses the potentially negative impacts of its implementation on the industry and wider society. Based on this analysis, this paper provides several recommendations for improvements that should be considered by the Global Tailings Standard panel and other working groups preparing standards and guidelines. .