Potential for retrofitting STD

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Abstract
Submarine tailings disposal (STD) systems have been retrofitted, designed, or appear to be possible at several existing or abandoned coastal and island mines. At Atlas Copper Mine, the Philippines, the system is somewhat different from the norm: a 500‐m pipe pier, with a discharge point just below the surface, extends offshore to 30‐m water depth. Little environmental information is in the public domain, but there appears to be some nearshore turbidity and deposition. A system was designed for the Toquepala and Cuajone mines, Peru, but was not implemented. The discharge depth was to have been at 20 m to a sloping offshore bank, with low‐oxygen water and sediments. The Marcopper Mine, the Philippines, elected for nearshore disposal, but extended this by causeway to surface discharge over deeper water. Reviews of potential STD sites showed at least three locations with apparently suitable depth and slope close to shore. At Bougainville Copper Mine, Papua New Guinea, the tailings disposal option was to a river with flow westward to the sea. Nearshore deep water beyond a fringing reef in an easterly direction was closer to the mine and could have been investigated for STD. The Jordan River Mine, Canada, in its most recent reopening (1972–74), installed a tailings pipeline to discharge at 12‐m depth to a nearshore depression. It broke repeatedly at this high wave energy site, which appears unsuitable for an STD system. Screening criteria that can be applied in STD retrofit proposals include coastal accessibility and a complex of technical and geophysical factors allowing generation of a tailings density current flowing coherently to a final deposition site.

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