Mine Waste Management: Change Management or Management of Change?

Paul Bedell, Geotechnical Engineer, WSP, presents his talk "Mine Waste Management: Change Management or Management of Change?" Abstract: Mine waste facilities exemplify the adage that “the only constant is change”. These facilities are conceived, designed, constructed, and operated over years, if not decades, to become some of the largest engineering structures on earth. Design bases, construction, operations, and decisions along the way change as these facilities are developed in response to many factors. The facilities are to be robust, resilient, and with sufficient redundancies to avoid catastrophic failure leading to the release of mine waste and water. While no engineer or owner has a crystal ball to see into the future, how is a “safe facility” brought into operation, operated and developed over its lifetime, and closed? Such safe facilities are requirements of society, financiers, owners, regulators, and engineers; recent catastrophic dam failures have made this the non-negotiable reality of mine waste facilities. This presentation will speak to some of the considerations and approaches used to achieve safe mine waste facilities in recognition of the ever-present changing landscape. Purposefully developed using the “pose many questions yet provide few answers” style, the objectives of this presentation are to help you think outside the typical engineering box, foster discussion, and provide food for thought for those who enter the practice of mine waste management. Speaker Bio: Paul Bedell is a geotechnical engineer working for WSP Canada Inc. (through the acquisition of Golder Associates Ltd.) and is based in Vancouver, BC. Paul has 27 years of experience working on mine waste facilities all over the world, ranging from equatorial to arctic locations and having production rates ranging from a few thousand to over 140,000 tonnes per day. His services range from resident engineering to design, operational support, permitting support and engineer of record services. Paul is registered as a professional engineer in BC, ON, SK, and NT/NU. His current major assignment is the engineer of record for Teck’s Quebrada Blanca 2 tailings management facility located in northern Chile at 4,400 m above sea level that includes a 120 m high starter dam developed into a 310 m high sand dam at a processing rate of 140,000 tonnes per day.