Way cleared for vertical extension of tailings pond at Tara Mines

Preparatory work for a four-metre high extension to the Tara Mines tailings pond will begin next month, with the major contract for building the dam set to start next spring. The way was cleared for work to begin in recent weeks when residents of Simonstown Lane, who had previously indicated their opposition to the extension, indicated they would not be appealing against the planning permission granted by Meath County Council. Brendan Brady of Residents Against Tailings Expansion (RATE) said they had decided not to appeal the decision to Bord Pleanala when they received a written guarantee from Tara Mines that this would be the last externsion to the tailings pond. "We had a meeting with the general manager of Tara Mines and he gave us a letter in writing that, if they raised the tailings pond this time, it would be the last extension," he said. "We are pleased at the outcome. We have a guarantee that, when the extension is at capacity, it will be capped off and returned to a gricultural use," he said. Mr Brady said they had asked for this guarantee to be made a condition of planning, but said the council hadn't looked after them in this way. "We got the guarantee from Tara Mines ourselves and the additional storage capacity will keep the mine going until 2015," he added. Meanwhile, company spokesman John Kelly said that first phase of the work would be completed in 2012 and the final phase of the work would be finished by 2015. He indicated that, at the height of the multi-million euro development, there would be 30 jobs created at the site just outside Navan. Mr Kelly said that a rehabilitation programme for the tailings facility was already been discussed with the council. Residents of Simonstown Lane had earlier objected to the planning application for the extension saying they weren't opposed to a lateral extension to the pond, which would see it extended over a greater area, but that they were opposed to increasing the height of the pond, which already towers over the lane. Boliden Tara Mines pointed out at the time that similar facilities were working well around the world, but they are willing to meet with residents if they have any concerns. The four-metre vertical extension to the pond, which will now go ahead, will deliver an additional 5.6 million cubic metres of storage capacity for waste from the mining operation. The company said the extension is for the purpose of extending the life of the mine and would be constructed on the footprint of the existing facility, which occupies an area of 170 hectares. Tailings from the mine are the waste materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the worthless fraction of an ore. A tailings pond owned by Boliden in southern Spain burst in 1998, leading to a major environmental disaster. The tailings pond failure at the Boliden Apirsa mining operation in southern Spain occurred in April 1998, when a 600m section of the downstream dyke of the tailings pond at the mining operation 35km from Seville suddenly slid up to 60m. The slide created a breach in the dam through which water and tailings were flushed out. In a few hours, between a million and two million tonnes of acid and metal-rich water flowed out of the dam and onto the surrounding land. The company has indicated that it does not walk away from closed tailings ponds and its track record is unique because the company has undertaken so many decommissionings. Decommissioning involves the removal of safety risks and structures, remediation of contaminated soil, landscaping and reclamation such as re-vegetation. Monitoring goes on at the Tara Mines tailings pond all year, including weekly and monthly monitoring by the company itself, as well as unannounced audits by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).