U.N. Body Alarmed Over Mining Waste Disasters
Some of the worst mining disasters do not happen in mines.
They take place at dams.
After minerals are extracted from mines, there are waste materials — including sand, rock and chemicals. They're known as "tailings" and are permanently stored in dams constructed of earth, rock-fill or concrete.
But the dams can fail — from chemical erosion caused by the tailings and from disasters like floods and earthquakes. And the toll can be devastating.
That is the message in a report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) released in November. It is the first time the U.N. has documented the widespread destruction caused by these dam failures.
In 2014, for broke, spilling billions of gallons of mine waste into a nearby creek. The and water washed away trees and . Lingering environmental effects from the Mount Polley Disaster, as it is known, are still felt to this day.
