Jagersfontein tailings disaster - a reminder mining still has a credibility crisis

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I woke up this morning to the devastating news of another deadly tailings dam failure, this time in Jagersfontein, Free State, South Africa. A massive mud torrent had destroyed many houses in the settlement of Charlesville. There are conflicting reports on the number of people dead and missing, with Bloomberg reporting three dead, while Mining.com has reported one dead.

Tailings innundation in Charlesville, near Jagersfontein, 11 Sep 2022 (source: https://africatimes.com/2022/09/11/sa-diamond-mine-dam-fails-fatal-deluge-hits-charlesville/)

28 years ago, there was another catastrophic tailings dam failure in Free State, in the town of Merriespruit. That event killed 17 people and lead to strengthening of residue management standards in South Africa. Merriespruit is one of a string of failures over the last 40 years, which have included Stava, Los Frailes, Mt Polly, Fundao (Samarco) and Brumadinho.

ICMM has issued a statement and reinforced the importance of the implementation of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM). I, too, am dismayed and saddened, and I felt something important was missing from the ICMM press release. The Jagersfontein mine was formerly owned by De Beers, which in turn is 85% owned by Anglo American, a founding member of ICMM. The property, which had been shut down in 1971, was sold by De Beers, and in its Report to Society 2010, De Beers stated: “Where possible, the Family of Companies (i.e. De Beers) has sold late-lifecycle mines to operators optimised to generate value from late-lifecycle mines. In October 2010, we sold the mine site and tailings mineral resource at Jagersfontain Mine in South Africa. Closed as a mine for almost 40 years, the mine was sold to Superkolong Consortium, a broad based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) holding company under terms which will deliver sustainable benefit to the Jagersfontein community.”

What was delivered to the Jagersfontein community this week is death and destruction. There are many questions. In 2010, how did De Beers assess that the new owners had the necessary competence and capacity to manage a major tailings facility, including a tailings reprocessing operation? What records and risk documentation were passed on about the facility? Was the new owner aware of and adhering to appropriate and legally required tailings management practices? Did De Beers do any follow up post transfer to ensure community interests were being addressed? Would such a requirement be fair and reasonable to expect from De Beers? Were residents of the Charleville aware of the risks in a failure event and were results of dam breach analysis shared with communities? Were response plans in place should an emergency occur?

Google Earth shows the facility as follows, which offers some clues, and I have marked on the general location of the failure and direction of the tailings flow based on early reports from Dave Petley, a geotechnical expert based in England.

Jagersfontein Tailings Facility (source: Google Earth)

It looks like there is a lot of water in the facility at the time of this photo. A 2013 environmental impact assessment report included a description of an old tailings facility and a new one adjoined to the west, constructed by the new owner, Jagersfontein Developments. Ongoing construction and modification of a tailings facility can cause problems that eventually lead to catastrophic failures. It was not clear if tailings reprocessing activities were ongoing around the time of the breach. These failures can be complex and we will need to wait for a proper investigation to be completed before causes can be identified.

In the meantime, Jagersfontein reveals some yawning gaps in tailings facility safety:

  1. While the GISTM has been a significant step forward in setting tailings management standards, many mining operators have not yet committed to implementing it or similar management systems such as TSM.

  2. Stewardship of legacy facilities, after transfer of ownership to other companies or to communities or governments. Residual risks from tailings facilities can remain.

As an industry, there is much to do to restore our battered credibility with respect to safe tailings management. We need to renew our commitment to stop killing people. This may include a stronger leadership role for competent mining companies, investors and industry professionals to ensure that all mine operators are rising to societal expectations for safe and environmentally acceptable practice. The future of the industry depends on this.