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THE MASSIVE 46 STORY TALL STRUCTURE: The Penasquito Mine Tailings Dam
THE MASSIVE 46 STORY TALL STRUCTURE: The Penasquito Mine Tailings Dam
The colossal Penasquito Mine’s tailings dam will reach a stunning height of a 46 story skyscraper over the next decade. That is, if the mine reopens and is allowed to continue business as usual. Newmont-Goldcorp suspended operations at Mexico’s second largest silver mine on April 29th, due to a blockade stemming from issues with the local community in regards to water supply concerns and problems with a trucking contractor.
Last year, the Penasquito Mine produced 272,000 oz of gold and over 18 million oz of silver. However, it plans on producing over 5 million oz of gold and 400+ million oz of silver over the next decade.
After I published my article, MORE TROUBLE IN MEXICO: Second Largest Silver Mine Suspended Operations, I did some research on Penasquito’s tailings dam, and when I saw a photo of the dam, I was literally shocked by its massive size. I never really gave it much thought about where all the waste ended up after the processing of ore was finished. It’s a typical problem we all deal with today, OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND.
Let me start by saying that the tailings dam is so large; it surpasses the size of the Penasquito open-pit mine itself. For clarification, the tailings dam (or ponds) are used to store the processed waste slurry after the metals have been extracted. Here is a layout of the Penasquito Mining Operation:
(image courtesy of Goldcorp 2018 Tailings & Mine Waste Conference PDF report)
As you can see, the tailings dam is 4 kilometers long compared to the Penasquito open-pit mine, which is about half its size. However, this layout doesn’t give the epic scale of the tailings dam justice. According to the images in Goldcorp’s 2018 Tailings & Mine Waste Conference PDF, and data from the company’s Feb 2019 Penasquito Mine Tour Presentation, the tailings dam is currently 85 meters tall, or nearly 280 feet in height:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
MORE TROUBLE IN MEXICO: Second Largest Silver Mine Suspended Operations
MORE TROUBLE IN MEXICO: Second Largest Silver Mine Suspended Operations
In just a little more than a week after the mighty Newmont-Goldcorp merger was finalized, the company suspended operations of its largest gold-silver mine in Mexico. The Penasquito Mine, which produced more than a 500,000 ounces of gold and 25 million ounces of silver in a single year, has been dealing with a blockade of its operations since March 27th.
The blockade was started due to issues with the local community in regards to water supply concerns and problems with a trucking contractor. However, the protests by the local community over water rights have been going on ever since the Penasquito Mine started operations in 2010.
According to the article, Goldcorp using excessive water at Peñasquito mine – critics, research by McGill Research Group, reported that the Penasquito Mine was using three times the amount of water than it originally agreed upon. Furthermore, the large open-pit gold-silver mine, located in the state of Zacatecas, was also consuming three times the amount of water supplied to the entire City of Zacatecas (population 129,000).
To get an idea the amount of water being consumed by the Penasquito Mine, I looked at the data from Goldcorp’s most recent Sustainability Report. In 2017, the Penasquito Mine withdrew a staggering 7.9 billion gallons of water to supply its operations for the year. Of that total amount, 93% came from groundwater. That is one hell of a lot of water.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the suspension to end. However, with the election of the new President AMLO of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, large foreign mining companies in Mexico may find it increasingly challenging to GET THEIR WAY as they have in the past with the help of pro-mining leaders.
Regardless, the Penasquito Mine produced the second highest amount of silver in Mexico last year:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
