MINESITE MAKEOVER
Many mining companies are doing their best to rehabilitate old mine sites. The Eden Anglesea project in Victoria aims to rejuvenate a body of water where a mining pit used to be.
MCA chief executive Tania Constable believes Australia is a leading jurisdiction in sustainable mining practices, including mine rehabilitation and closure.
“The implementation and performance of the Australian mining industry in rehabilitation is continuously improving, driven by ongoing investment in rehabilitation practice,” Ms Constable said.
“There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to mine rehabilitation but over many years, the industry has worked closely with government and research institutions to develop and share improved practices.”
Ms Constable said that leading practice approaches start with establishing a final closure design that balances the needs of government and local community.
“Rehabilitation should be integrated into life-of-mine planning, and wherever practical implemented progressively as the mine develops,” she said.
In practice, good management means understanding environmental values before mining, evaluating the potential risks and applying the ‘avoid-minimise-mitigate’ environmental management hierarchy to reduce the mining footprint throughout the mine-life.
Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) principal research fellow and associate professor Claire Côte has engaged extensively with mining operations in Australia, Africa, Chile and Canada to address water and sustainability issues, documenting and implementing leading practices and said that mine rehabilitation planning is all about the long term goal.
“It’s all about integrated planning and taking into account environmental requirements for rehabilitation from day one and planning the life of mine around rehabilitation and closure requirements,” Professor Côte said.
“Mine sites really need to think long term.”
End land use
Australian mining companies have significant in-house expertise in rehabilitation and closure planning and where necessary, nationally and internationally-recognised specialists are also engaged to review and provide input into rehabilitation and closure programs.
The industry’s approach to land rehabilitation has improved significantly over past decades – an evolution driven by sustained investment in land rehabilitation techniques, evolving corporate values, community expectations and government regulation.
“Mining activities are comprehensively regulated under state-based mining, development and planning legislation which is continuously evolving in line with community expectations,” Ms Constable said.
MCA also shares and promotes best practice and the rehabilitation work of Australian companies to increase community awareness of the work that’s being done.
“This has included our ‘ There’s more to Australian mining’ campaign which focuses on effective mine rehabilitation and how mining and farming work together,” Ms Constable said.
SMI senior research fellow Phill McKenna said many mines in central Queensland are located in agricultural areas, so aiming for grazing as the final end land use was quite a logical goal for mining companies.
“If you can plan for some of those end land uses from the start you can maximise resources and get the best outcomes in terms for the money put in to rehab,” Mr McKenna said.
The key is to understand the end land use goal and the difference between restoration and rehabilitation.
“Restoration is essentially the process to the full recovery of an ecosystem and all the functionalities and services associated with that ecosystem,” Mr McKenna said.
“Rehabilitation is really just a partial recovery of some of those ecosystem services.
“With grazing, the previous land holder will typically come in and start using the site within a pastoral context but when you’re looking at native ecosystems, it’s a lot more complex to achieve tree and shrub density and species richness.”
Mr McKenna said that mine sites will typically aim for a novel or hybrid ecosystem within all the constraints of the environment and budget.
“They’re aiming to create an ecosystem to the highest standard and the highest levels, but it can be virtually impossible to recreate a native ecosystem back to its full function,” he said.
The Eden project
Mr McKenna pointed to Alcoa as an example of bauxite mining areas that are probably close to full restoration.
“Some of those areas would be the most successful examples of rehabilitation in the country,” he said.
Alcoa asset manager Warren Sharp said that the company has always had lofty goals about the legacy it wants to leave behind from mining operations, and a key example of this is the unique Eden Anglesea project in Victoria.
The company has teamed up with the Eden Project — an educational charity, social enterprise and visitor attraction in an abandoned mine in Cornwall in the UK.
“We had a mind to open up the land to alternative uses that might beneficial to the community,” Mr Sharp said.
“People are very excited about the concept, what Eden can bring, and they are very excited about educational opportunities, the opportunity to put a wonderful ecosystem at Anglesea on the map in an environmental way.
“They’re also excited about sustainability opportunities and economic opportunities.”
Mr Sharp said the operating mine provided around 80 jobs but the Eden project would bring around 300 permanent and local jobs to the region.
“The economic impact is really significant,” he said.
“It’s quite a wonderful story to go from long term mining to an environmentally and educationally based outcome that has so many more jobs and more to offer the community.”
Community feedback for the project has been overwhelmingly positive, with 800 people attending community consultation events and 3000 people engaging online.
“It was probably the first time we’ve talked to the community about something that could happen on our land that was very tangible,” Mr Sharp said.
The main concerns flagged were around traffic management and congestion.
“We want to make sure that any offerings at Eden are done in a way that is sympathetic and empathetic to the businesses in Anglesea so that it doesn’t take away from the local businesses,” Mr Sharp said.
“People wanted to know how we would build in renewable energies, the right educational opportunities for local and regional schools and how we’d get the infrasture in place.”
Corporate responsibility
Ms Constable said that Australian mining companies (like Alcoa) understand land rehabilitation is fundamental to responsible mining.
“The Australian minerals industry recognises its responsibility as a temporary custodian of land to contribute to sustainable land use outcomes,” she said.
“Mining rehabilitation is critical to ongoing community acceptance and the ability to successfully rehabilitate mined areas is fundamental to the industry’s social licence to operate and a foundation for demonstrating the industry’s commitment to operating responsibly.”
Mr Sharp echoed this sentiment, stating that Alcoa intended to rehabilitate the mine to the highest standard with or without the involvement of the Eden project.
“We had a really great relationship with the community over 50 years, we had the privilege of being in the area and we are patently aware of that,” he said,
“People probably won’t remember our 50 years of operation but they will remember how we leave — so for Alcoa it is about doing the mine rehab and getting something there that will be of net community benefit that can be our legacy to the community – that’s really important to us.
“We hope the project will be great, not just for Anglesea, but for Victoria and maybe even Australia in terms of being an exemplar of what can be done.”
“People probably won’t remember our 50 years of operation but they will remember how we leave - so for Alcoa it’s about doing the mine rehab and getting something there that will be of net community benefit that can be our legacy to the community.”