In their work to maintain conformance with the disaster management aspects of new tailings standards, mines in South Africa are recognising that sound community relationships lie at the heart of successful implementation.
According to Andries Fourie, Principal Technologist in Disaster and Risk Management at SRK Consulting, there are complexities in the South African context that can create challenges in continuous compliance with the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM). Principle 13 of the GISTM requires the owners or operators of a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) to develop and apply a detailed Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (EPRP), while Principle 14 deals with the long - term recovery process following a catastrophic TSF failure.
“With its sensitivity to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) aspects, the GISTM specifies that the EPRP must be community focused and must be co-developed with project-affected people", explained Fourie. “To ensure that the EPRP can be effectively implemented, mines must also engage with public sector agencies, first responders, local authorities and other relevant institutions — to assess the capability of those emergency services that will respond in the event of a disaster".
Among those most affected by a TSF incident are people in the vicinity of the TSF, which may include informal settlements. He highlighted that, in the context of the country's high unemployment rate, it is common that mining operations will tend to attract many people seeking economic opportunities — even if there is insufficient formal housing in the area.
“Engagement with informal settlements can be complicated by the often fluid movement of people into and out of these areas", he said. "Sound long - term engagement is often best conducted with the assistance from established leadership structures, and in many cases, these may not formally exist — or may change rapidly as people may not be permanently settled". Fourie noted that this varied considerably from the situation in certain European countries where he has conducted similar GISTM work, where communities around mines tended to be more stable and well established. Basic municipal services are also often not available in mine communities in South Africa, which creates a greater reliance on the mine and can strain relations.
