What is Suncor doing with its tailings ponds?
Suncor is the first oil sands company to reclaim a tailings pond to a trafficable surface, able to support the weight of vehicles. The pond was transformed into a 220-hectare watershed, named Wapisiw Lookout, capable of supporting a variety of plants and wildlife and composed of: developing mixed wood forest.
What are oil sand and tailing ponds?
The Oil sands tailings ponds are settling ponds that contain the waste byproduct of oil sands extraction and upgrading. They are a mix of water, sand, silt, clay, unrecovered hydrocarbons, and other contaminants.
What is the purpose of a tailings pond in mining?
Tailings ponds are used to store the waste made from separating minerals from rocks, or the slurry produced from tar sands mining. Tailings are sometimes mixed with other materials such as bentonite to form a thicker slurry that slows the release of impacted water to the environment.
How does a tailing pond work?
When you take the rock out of the ground, you grind it up to particles about the size of sand and silt, then you run it through what they call a concentration plant and it separates the minerals of interest from the waste. The waste becomes tailings, and it gets mixed up with water, and it’s pumped out into this pond.
How do tailings work?
Tailings consist of ground rock and process effluents that are generated in a mine processing plant. Mechanical and chemical processes are used to extract the desired product from the run of the mine ore and produce a waste stream known as tailings.
What are coarse tailings?
Coarse tailings means a mixture of 65‐75 percent dry cobs and 25‐35 percent filtered tailings. Sample 1. Coarse tailings means the crushed rock or ore material located in the Tailings Area, as defined below, and in or near the East Pit and more specifically identified on EXHIBIT “G” hereto.
What is in oil sands tailings?
Oil sands tailings are a mixture of water, sand, fine silts, clay, residual bitumen and lighter hydrocarbons, inorganic salts and water-soluble organic compounds. Tailings are stored in basins called tailings ponds, which allow the solids in tailings to settle.
How do tailings affect the environment?
When rain falls on tailings, it leaches away materials that can create water pollution, for example, lead, arsenic, and mercury. Sulfuric acid is sometimes produced when water interacts with tailings, or it can be a by-product of ore processing.
How are tailings disposed of?
The traditional means of tailings disposal is typically an impound method, often stored in a constructed dam in diluted form. This form of waste storage poses a number of concerns, the biggest of which is safety.
Are tailings ponds safe?
Toxic tailing ponds, which are by-products of tar sands extraction, are a serious environmental problem. These poisonous ponds continue to grow and grow. The Alberta government has allowed the environmental cost and economic liability of the oil sands industry’s tailings ponds to grow for nearly fifty years.
Can tailings be recycled?
By reprocessing tailings, dewatering them and then storing them in a dry stack, mines can remove some of the economic, environmental and societal risks associated with tailings stored in slurry. The water recovered can then be reused, helping to drive down abstraction and logistics costs.
How do tailing ponds affect humans?
But also, scientists have linked the contamination of the Athabaska River to the chemicals found in tailings ponds. And that toxic contamination has been linked to health effects, including rare cancers, in Indigenous communities downstream from the tar sands.
How are mine tailings disposed?
The predominant method of tailings disposal is by pumping and sub-aerial deposition of an aqueous slurry (typically at 30–45% initial solids concentration by mass and an initial gravimetric moisture content, w, of 233–122%) to a surface TSF.
How do you dispose of mine tailings?
The tailings are disposed of through pond storage, dry sacking, into underground workings, or in the ocean. Based on the type of tailing, the right disposal method must be chosen. The way to manage overburden is by backfilling it back into the excavated mine land.
What can be done with tailings?
What environmental problems are associated with tailings?
Tailings deposited as large piles can cause a variety of environmental problems: Slumps, landslides. Tailing piles can be unstable, and experience landslides. In 1966, in Aberfan, Wales, a hill of mining debris famously collapsed onto buildings, resulting in 144 deaths.
Why must mine tailings be stored and disposed of carefully?
Tailings are finely ground rocks and other mineral waste as a result of mineral processing. Due to the way minerals are processed, tailings can contain concentrations of processing chemicals. This can make mine tailings an environmental concern, so proper transportation and disposal are crucial.
How can we reduce environmental impact of tailings?
Discover five ways the mining industry can reduce environmental impact and make its practices more sustainable.
- Lower-Impact Mining Techniques.
- Reusing Mining Waste.
- Eco-Friendly Equipment.
- Rehabilitating Mining Sites.
- Shutting Down Illegal Mining.