Tailings & Mine Waste ‘08: Homer & Virgil for modern mining wisdom

Yesterday I noted that the conference on Tailings and Mine Waste ‘08 has extended the deadline for abstracts to mid-June and papers to mid-July.  This being a blog and me being me, let me suggest some topics for papers. 

 First there is that hoary old topic: acid mine drainage.  I recommend no papers on the topic– such presentations bring out the sanctimonious that is best left to Hagee.  Nobody is prepared to tell the truth: you can’t really do anything cost-effective about it and should not open mines where it will be a problem.  Now that is a paper I would like to see.  Maybe co-authored by Scoble.

Then let us have a paper on covers.  Not another that tells of solving partially saturated seepage using some computer code or other, or that tries to fib about the fact that less water will go through a compacted soil than that same soil in its natural state.  Let’s have a paper that honestly admits that covers on sideslopes will creep down the slope, that top covers will become vegetated masses, and that unless your site is geomorphology stable, the cover will be gone before the acid-free paper the proceedings are printed on rots away.

Let us not have any papers on risk assessment.  Nothing new has been said on that topic in thirty years.  The equations have not changed in hundreds of years.  And to attempt to justify not doing the almighty thing to keep the tallings and waste rock safe and sound by recourse to risk arguments is so pathetic as to be morally culpable. 

We do need a paper or two on wetlands.  At least how to design and build them so you can walk away and not have to come back to spend more on their care and maintenance than you spent on the waste disposal facility in the first place.  I suspect that wetlands as a proclaimed solution to perpetual seepage is a myth.  Maybe we need a paper to disprove me. 

We do need a paper or two on the water balance of mine waste disposal facilities–but not like that terrible one by a Golder employee at CIM: he told us only that GoldSim is the best code to use (which is of course true) but that Golder had their own spread sheet which they will use if you pay them enough in consulting fees.  Now that is a perfect example of why I generally avoid conferences. 

I would plead for a session talked to by lawyers working on issues related to the law and law-suites of mine waste.   The best conferences are those where all the talkers are lawyers.  Their papers may be full of footnotes referencing obscure statutes and regulations, but generally their talks are lively, well-prepared recounting of the stories of human folly that gave rise to-the court battles they write about.  It’s like being around a camp fire with Homer and Virgil. 

But spare me any papers or presentations by those people I have on my little list:  the immature/amateur “lawyer.”  You know the ones:  they are the regulatory compliance folk who present papers on ARARs and RCRA/CERCLA, and local regulations. They talk about regulations as though the regulations came down from a mountain and a burning bush.  They epitomise the difference between a real lawyer and amateur:  lawyers tell what the laws says and hence why you can do what you want to.  The people I avoid, the regulatory compliance folk, tell what the law is and therefore why you cannot do what you want to . 

I could go on forever on this topic.  But I have already, I hope, made more than enough suggestions for papers we need to see at this upcoming resuscitation of an historic conference.  I may have offended some–but that is good–take revenge by writing a paper that proves me wrong.  I wonder if they will let me near Vail?  I reserve the right to stay away if there are too many ARAR papers.