Rehabilitation Strategy for Tailings Removal

Project Overview

Explore Consultancy recently prepared a Rehabilitation Strategy to support the proposed removal and reprocessing of historical tailings at an operating mine in NSW.

The Strategy formed part of the supporting documentation for a development application and addressed the rehabilitation of the tailings footprints and associated disturbance areas following material removal.

Our role was to develop a practical, site-specific rehabilitation framework that aligned with the mine’s existing Rehabilitation Management Plan while addressing the environmental risks and planning considerations associated with disturbing and removing historical tailings.

Our Approach

Rather than treating rehabilitation as an activity commencing only after tailings removal, we developed an integrated framework covering the complete transition from excavation and decommissioning through to final landform establishment, revegetation, monitoring and rehabilitation sign-off.

Key components of the work included:

• Reviewing the existing rehabilitation framework, objectives, completion criteria and final land-use requirements.
• Identifying site-specific rehabilitation risks and constraints, including potentially acid-forming materials, contamination, dust, erosion, sedimentation, surface water management and long-term landform stability.
• Establishing a staged rehabilitation approach covering decommissioning, landform establishment, growth-medium development, ecosystem establishment and ongoing ecosystem development.
• Defining a pathway for contamination assessment and validation following removal of the tailings.
• Identifying commitments to ensure stable landform design, drainage management and integration with the surrounding topography.
• Identifying soil preparation, surface stabilisation and revegetation options to support the establishment of a sustainable native ecosystem.
• Integrating rehabilitation quality assurance, monitoring and adaptive management requirements with the mine’s existing management systems.
• Identifying the specialist investigations and management plans required to support detailed post-approval rehabilitation planning.
• Preparing rehabilitation and final land-use mapping to illustrate the proposed transition of the site following tailings removal.

Outcome

The Rehabilitation Strategy provides a clear framework for progressively transforming the historical tailings areas into safe, stable and non-polluting landforms capable of supporting the nominated final land use.

Importantly, the Strategy links tailings removal with contamination validation, landform design, water management, revegetation and long-term monitoring. This allows rehabilitation considerations to inform project planning and implementation from the outset.

The framework also provides flexibility for rehabilitation methods to be refined in response to specialist investigations, site conditions and monitoring results, while maintaining alignment with the mine’s broader regulatory and rehabilitation obligations. Flexibility was a key aspect of the Strategy to avoid locking the client into a particular rehabilitation methodology in the development application; rehabilitation often evolves and Explore Consultancy recognises the need for flexibility for our clients.

Services Provided

• Rehabilitation Strategy preparation
• Rehabilitation risk and constraint assessment
• Final land-use and rehabilitation planning
• Rehabilitation staging and methodology development
• GIS mapping and spatial analysis
• Monitoring and adaptive management framework development
• Identifying required specialist investigations and management plans

Need assistance developing a rehabilitation strategy for your project? Contact Explore Consultancy to discuss how we can help you.