Firm to establish eco-friendly mine tailing treatment facility

THE King-King Gold and Copper Project (KGCP) in Pantukan, Compostela Valley will be employing a more modern and more environment-friendly way in disposing the mine tailings which are usually kept in dams.

In a process called dry stacking, St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited country manager Clyde Gillespie said they will be spending more money with dry stacking but it will be safer and with lesser negative impact to the environment.

Dry stacking is a process wherein mine tailings are dewatered using vacuum or pressure filters so that they can be stacked dry. The area where the tailings are stored can later be turned into parks or anything the community wants. The danger of the mine tailings seeping into the oceans or rivers, as what happened in the Marcopper disaster in Marinduque in 1996, is greatly reduced with dry stacking as the mine tailings are already dry when disposed.

The Marcopper tragedy is said to be the worst min- ing disaster in the Philippines. It happened when a fracture in the drainage tunnel of a large pit containing leftover mine tailings led to a discharge of toxic mine waste into the Makulapnit-Boac river system and caused flash floods in areas along the river.

Gillespie said they chose dry stacking method of disposing the tailings instead of dam or pond storage because it would be more favorable to the environment. He admitted that dry stacking can be more expensive than building mine tailings dam, but the “benefit outweigh the cost”.

It reduces the impacts on the environment in terms of space used, leaves the tailings in a dense and stable arrangement and eliminates the long-term liability that ponds leave after mining is finished.

“The reason why the industry tends to shy away from dry stacking is because of the cost. It is more expensive operating cost than the conventional way of tailings. But this is what we call the benefit outweigh the cost. The biggest benefit would be to the environment,” said Gillespie.

The mining firm met with the representatives of the local government unit in Pantukan Tuesday evening here in Davao City to present the status update of the project to the local leaders composed mostly of barangay leaders.

Among concerns raised by the local officials were the project’s environment impact on the town which has been a small-scale mining area for several decades now. Barangay leaders also asked the company as to their share of wealth once the mining operation starts in 2017.

The local officials also expressed concern on their town’s future after the mining operation of KGCP in the area.

KGCP project is a joint project of SAGCL and its local partner the Nationwide Development Corporation (Nadecor).

So far, SAGCL has already invested $80 million in the past three years that their partnership has started with Nadecor. The project would create 4-5,000 jobs with 1,700 direct employment during construction which would start next year.

The company expect to produce 100,000 tonnes per day once operation starts which will be split between 40,000 tonnes per day to an on-off heap leach and 60,000 tonnes per day to a flotation mill with agitated tails leach.

The mining rate will be approximately 178,000 tonnes per day for the 22 year mine plan. Production from the heap leach process is expected to start one year prior to commencing mill operations.