What are the most important aspects of the environmental approach developed for Voorspoed?
When the mining authorisation process began, the current legislation required us to compile an Environmental Management Programme as part of the licence submission. This process at Voorspoed was used to emphasise the importance of environmental management. Additionally, and more importantly, the process was used to show how a well thought out environmental management programme could be used in mine planning and subsequent mine construction and operation.
A comprehensive stakeholder engagement process allowed Voorspoed Mine to understand the “green field” site that was about to become a mine. This process included discussions and inputs from the regulatory authorities as well. By having a thorough understanding of the environmental aspects of the future mine, designing of the mine could be enhanced by taking into consideration aspects such as soil types, surface topography and avoidance of sensitive landscapes.
What this has meant is that our mining residue facilities have been positioned on soils that hold “less” agricultural potential, thus reducing our surface impact. The infrastructure that may be removed and remediated to a pre-mining land use, such as the mine buildings and plant areas, have been positioned on the “better” soils.
Sensitive landscapes such as the wetland adjacent to the mining area, were identified early in the authorisation process, thus enabling the mine to have no impact on the area. Within the mining area a small pan has been identified, and a series of stormwater channels have been built to reduce and minimise any impact during the mining process.
With the cost of mine closure in mind, when selecting the office infrastructure pre-fabricated “fit for purpose” infrastructure was used, this reduces our rehabilitation costs. To minimise the size of our waste rock dump and final mine footprint, the crushed basalt “waste” was used for terracing and mine road construction. This process not only saved costs but will aid in the rehabilitation process as well.
In 20 years, what will Voorspoed look like?
The environmental management of Voorspoed Mine been aligned intimately with the mine plans. In essence what this means is that the rehabilitation and remediation of disturbed land will be done concurrently with the mining operation.
In 20 years time as per the current approved mine plans Voorspoed Mine would have finalised its closure process.
For the environment, what is idealised is that the mine residue facilitates would be remediated and self-sustainable, the mining infrastructure will be completely removed and Voorspoed would “blend” into the surrounding environment.
This said, life after Voorspoed will be considered a wildness area. Our pre-mining land use of farming may be restored in areas and the wetland should have recovered and re-established itself.
The wetland will definitely be one of the areas that will be of more environmental value than it’s pre-mining land use.