Tailings Management Costs and Risk Analysis – GEMMx Workshop
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Key Observations
- Need for focus on risk tools and approaches – from community and company tools to regulatory tools
- Framing: the value of prevention rather than the cost of failure
- Business costs motivate and direct behavior of shareholders, managers
- Need a better set of tools for integrating value and risks
- Data availability for tailings facilities is sometimes a source of risk
- Risk assessor and risk decision-maker must be kept separate
Questions for Further Consideration
- How to make safety the primary design criterion? What is stopping it? How can we reinforce this with regulation?
- Where does perpetual treatment fit into the precautionary approach?
- What do communities need to be engaged and how?
- How do we share knowledge and understanding? Access to tools?
- Share risk and shared decision making – how are they related? Is there a role for FOV? Co. manage during operations?
- How do we engage with communities around tailings – site, design, monitoring – what capacity building is needed?
- Who else could help in designing engagement? Are there other disciplines for which we could learn?
- How do we deal with uncertainties in the information and risks?
- What is the potential for civil suits related to aboriginal rights?
- When / how should exploration compromises deal with tailings related questions?
- Could risk registers be made public? How could we make this process more transparent?
- Move towards aligning regulated requirements for tailings facility process with TSM protocols?