Actualizing Sustainable Mining

8/3/2019 Actualizing Sustainable Mining

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ACTUALIZING SUSTAINABLE MINING: WHOLE MINE, WHOLE

COMMUNITY, WHOLE PLANET THROUGH INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

AND COMMUNITY-BASED STRATEGIES

Ivan Weber, Weber Sustainability Consulting

Salt Lake City, UT

Summary

Asking the question, What do the worlds leadingcorporations and cutting-edge practitioners of sustainabilityput forth to guide a given mine site for planning and actiontoward sustainability?, this paper explores the spectrumof methodologies and mindsets in available literature, thenconstructs an example for the large near-closure facility atKennecott Utah Copper. Values, opportunities andconstraints spring from physical, unutilized byproducts,from critical ecosystems and wildlife populations, fromlocation relative to those ecosystems and proximatecommunities, and from the political will to performadequate feasibility investigations. Patience, determinationand thoroughness are imperative.

Identifying most productive and, simultaneously, mostprotective and restorative, practical methods to approachsustainability has become a central mission of industryand business, worldwide. A survey of recent internationalinitiatives finds no single approach that establishes either areadily adaptable methodology or an appropriate set ofattention points, or agenda, to guide individual miningoperations at specific locations toward the elusive but

essential goal of sustainable mining. Untying thisconvoluted knot of contending factors requires willingnessto recognize and work within ecological constraints forcommunity long-term needs. Occasionally, the taskrequires the sword of Alexander the Great.

Through integration that is unflinchingly honestethically, culturally, economically, ecologically andscientifically, fully cognizant of place and community atwhatever scales are of greatest significance, and integrativeof both problem-response and opportunity, we mayenvision a mineral extraction and beneficiation future thatachieves the best, most nearly sustainable, results possible.

Industrial ecology (IE), with its clear emphasis on

community, ecosystems, and sustainable economicstimulation, presents a sufficiently broad and adaptablediscipline to facilitate planning and management towardsustainable mining. The creation of sustainable jobsencapsulates IEs analogy to the niche survival strategies oforganisms in nature. Open to common-sense recognition offaults and opportunities at appropriate scales, IE is less adiscipline or prescribed methodology than a mindset,willing to be rigorously scientific when science isimperative, but also willing to exercise art when

creativity or community engagement are needed. IE is alsocapable of future-looking compassion for peoples andnature.

Looking beyond what has occurred to date, the case ofKennecott Utah Copper provides ample illustration of

possibilities for community economic development,environmental management, and significant initiativesbeneficial at regional and planetary scales, to becomerecognizable as deserving of the label, sustainable.Through what this researcher terms whole mine, wholeregion, whole planet thinking, strategies become visibleand subject to serious consideration, presenting a path tobest possible accomplishment in mining. Constituting amaximal broadening of minings traditional scope, theintegrative approach proposed here is the paradigm shiftbeing made by many other industries around the world. Inaggregate, these steps are the only hope for avoidance ofenvironmental, social and economic risks that threaten tocurtail resource development and impair mining companiessocial license to operate.

Minings Growing Challenges and Emerging

Opportunities

As one of the worlds most enduring and dominantforms of resource development, mining is a necessaryactivity whose history is fraught with difficulties, many ofthem avoidable. Although some have clearly been broughton solely by mining-related practices, many others are theresults of long term contextual changes. Population growthhas not only grown markets for mineral products, but hasalso brought communities into conflict with the health andenvironmental effects of mining. Air pollution, watercontamination, waste rock and tailings, abandoned mineshafts, pits and prospects, all have created physical dangersto people, wildlife, and habitats for both. Despite the

incontrovertible facts about minings creation of morewealth per unit area than any other extractive industry,minings history is filled with legacies of scarred andtoxified environments and communities, often with residualeconomic benefit to the local economy that isdisproportionately modest compared to wealth removed to adistant corporate headquarters.

Outright disasters are too numerous, including tailingsdam failure at a Spanish mine; emerging acid drainage fromthe infamous Tri-State Tar Creek (OK, MO, KS) lead-zinc

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mines many years after closure; countless cases of groundsubsidence, natural surface waterbody and aquiferpoisoning of widespread effect; and community economiccollapses due to sudden mine closures for various reasons,leaving disrupted or displaced indigenous populations. The

almost complete loss of forests, native vegetation and soilproductivity in some areas has so reduced productivity oflands that they remain essentially vacant or subject tointense economic depression. Of the list of severe U.S.environmental cases nominated for Superfund listing, aconsiderable number are mine sites, some of relativelyrecent origin, belying the idea that technology alone canprevent such problems, or that regulatory measures will notallow them to occur. Assessment, remediation andreclamation of these sites amount to such an enormous costburden as to be, arguably, one of the primary elements of agrowing environmental debt facing future generations.

As communities have not only grown around mining

areas (partially due, in many cases, to minerals-generatedwealth) but also have become better educated and moreable to access information from around the world,resistance has grown to mining. An activity whose hostingmight be very attractive to communities and nations, were itnot for this almost unparalleled trail of historical damageand irresponsibility, has caused even reputable, responsiblecompanies to face organized opposition and litigation, oreven denial of access to resources. Perennial cries forreform of the 1872 Mining Law have echoed through thehalls of Congress, and continue to do so.

Global and regional emerging environmental concernscompound these local problems. Macro-scale impacts havelong since become visible, however difficult to distinguishmining-caused phenomena from the effects of otherindustries and human activities.

Acid deposition: Airborne acid from fossil fuelcombustion and smelting-refining have reduced thebiological productivity of whole regions, as inAppalachia, though blame for this can only partially beplaced at the door of the mining industry.

Energy and climate change: Mining, beneficiation andrelated manufacturing and materials transport,however, clearly constitute one of the most energy-consumptive of all human activities. Consequent globalclimate change, caused by accumulation of heat-trapping carbon compounds in the atmosphere from

fossil-fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution, isnow recognized sufficiently as a universal threat that itdemands action through international agreements andnational policies now under consideration. Russiassigning of the Kyoto Climate Change Agreement will,inevitably, press companies operating in theinternational arena to comply with elevatedexpectations for greenhouse gas reductions, and will

create mechanisms to reward significant reductions andoffsets.

Wealth maldistribution and social unrest: Inequitableincome distribution has plagued economies throughoutthe world. Precipitous loss of jobs after mine closure

or rapid automation has left many areas destitute,desperate for employment alternatives. Developingnations, particularly, have been unable to escape boththe specter of social unrest accompanyingunemployment and income maldistribution andcorollary political instability.These pressures loom as minings primary obstacles

unless accepted and embraced as the opportunities that theyare, or may become. These challenges should inform

planning for efforts to approach sustainable mining,defining opportunities as surely as they highlight recurrentproblems. Much more than making lemonade when givenlemons, the mindset changes inherent in our collective

responses are keys to quality of life at all levels, at allscales, from remote outback to most dense urbancomplex. Everyone needs the products of mining,commodities needs that are difficult to envision diminishingin fundamental ways, regardless how individual productsand lifestyles may shift with technological and culturalchanges. Metals and non-metals materials from the earthmake up the preponderance of our infrastructure, buildingsand functional systems. Even were cultures worldwide tobecome so restrained in consumptiveness as to approach theasceticism of sequestered hermits, and resource recoverywere capable of recycling major proportions of keyresources, total population numbers promise ongoing

growth of demand for these materials for many generations.Buffers physical, cultural, socio-economic,regulatory and environmental, are all precarious if notpractically gone. Constraints to mining are not only morevisible, but also converging. Population growth increasesprobability of proximity to a mine, smelter or minerals-related industrial activity, bringing communities into therealm of both benefits and possible deleterious effects.Global population reached one billion in 1804, as theIndustrial Revolution was building up steam, figurativelyand literally. The second billion was not reached until1927; the third, 1960; the fourth, 1974; the fifth, 1987; thesixth, 1999. Projections cannot be certain, but they assureus that the seventh billion will be reached around 2012; the

eighth by 2026; and the ninth by about 2043 ( NY TimesAlmanac 2002, p.472). The regional nature of this growthplaces most of the increase in East, South and West Asia,Africa and some parts of Latin America, areas alsostruggling to emerge from crushing poverty. These are alsoareas where many mines are planned or active.

Even among the most advanced of national economiesin rapidly-growing areas, communities and theirenvironments are brought into conflict with industry,

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including mining, more frequently than ever before.Chinas relatively unregulated coal mining industryexperiences more than 4,000 deaths per year in the struggleto provide fuel for increasingly affluent areas. Almosteverywhere, ecosystems, habitats and wildlife dependent on

them are made more vulnerable by competition frompopulations, relegating extractive and energy-intensiveresource industries to positions closer to criticalenvironmental and economic margins. Mining finds itself,increasingly, between a rock and a hard place.

Rising affluence among burgeoning populationscompounds implications for demand of minerals and energyfrom mining, as well as tightening constraints on how theseactivities are carried out. As China, for example, theworlds most rapidly-growing large nation, multiplies itsstandard of living at unprecedented rates, the quantity ofresources required for this progress imposes corollaryimplications far beyond Chinas immediate vicinity, global

warming acceleration due to coal-dependence being onlyone example. This is true for environmental variables, forinternational investment, and for political systems that mustmaintain economic circumstances conducive to resourcedevelopment, however increasingly this development ismarginalized. As Chinas electricity consumption, nowaveraging per capita annually about the amount required topower a single, 60-watt lightbulb for 30 minutes each day,approaches European or even US levels (more than onehundred times Chinas average), constraints are likely tobecome more demanding of exercise of forethought,planning and socio-economic and environmentalresponsibility.

Cultural, social and information-driven changes areexerting profound pressures on extractive industries,moreover. Information access is opening environmentaland socio-economic awareness globally, giving rise tomovements, information and public education campaigns,as well as conduits for disinformation and folklore at largescale, with rapid dissemination. Environmental educationhas rightfully accompanied advances of biological andecological sciences, becoming more and more fullyintegrated into disciplines closely related to mining, such asthe building design and construction fields. Materialssustainability certification systems have been in rapiddevelopment, particularly for forest products (e.g., FSC,SFI) and for buildings, themselves (esp. USGBC).

Throughout recent decades, a worldwideenvironmental activism movement has propelled, withvarying degrees of success and accuracy, political changeand public attention to concerns of environment,environmental justice, corporate behavior, world trade,ecological degradation and wildlife losses. More andbetter-quality information develops on these issues everyday. Recognition has become pervasive that humans must

redesign their interactions with the earth and with eachother to become sustainable.

Mining is not alone among industries or communities,nor can it allow itself to be isolated in any sense. FormerSaudi Arabian Oil Minister and OPEC spokesman Sheik

Ahmed Zaki Yamani famously said, The Stone Age cameto an end not for a lack of stones, and the oil age will endbut not for a lack of oil. (quoted in London DailyTelegraph, www.Telegraph.co.uk, June 25, 2000). Thisapproaching end may be true for the oil-for-energyindustry, though, for oil and for coal, one can imagine theseforms of carbon becoming the primary basis for othermaterials made of carbon molecules --- plastics, carboncomposites, etc. --- instead of being burned for energy. Forminerals and mining, however, the stone age seemsdestined to remain, insofar as mining is able to learn tooperate within the constraints of the world, its communitiesand its environment. For both mining and the carbon fuels

industries, however, a soft landing approachingsustainability can only be accomplished by rapid, decisiveaction.

International Sustainable Development Efforts

For decades, public policy, scientific andenvironmental discourse and literature have become sofilled with sustainability debates as to make the subjectinescapable, if little more comprehensible. The verymeaning of the word and its associated phrases, especiallysustainable development, has become obscured byproliferation of uses at least as great as the number of users.Many trivialize the term by narrow, metaphoric or outrightfalse greenwashing claims. A brief, critical review of themost useful work is necessary in order to advance ourdiscussion of sustainable mining.Brundtland Commisssion: The most famous definition,that of the World Commission on the Environment andDevelopment, usually known as the BrundtlandCommission, characterized sustainable development as:

Development that meets the needs of the presentwithout compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs.

We contend that this definition is unacceptablyanthropocentric (i.e., human-centered) unless other keyBrundtland Commission formulations, seldom quoted, are

included to make the definition complete:Sustainable global development requires thatthose who are more affluent adopt lifestyles withinthe planet's ecological means."

And:"Sustainable development can only be pursued ifpopulation size and growth are in harmony withthe changing productive potential of theecosystem."

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It was clearly the intent of the Brundtland Commission thatthese formulations be used in concert, not in selectiveisolation, which has led to mischaracterization of theCommissions definition of sustainability.UNEP Stockholm Conference and Rio Declaration on

Environment and Development: In 1992 at the UnitedNations Conference on Environment and Development, 27Principles from the 1972 Stockholm UN Conference onthe Human Environment were adopted to guide sustainabledevelopment. (The Rio Declaration is available athttp://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=78&ArticleID=1163.) Although these principles arenumerous, they may fairly be reduced to emphases on:interdependence and indivisibility of peace, developmentand environmental protection; human health, welfare,equality and economic equity; harmony with nature andunconditionally protected environment and ecosystems, allsubject to the precautionary principle; adequate

environmental laws and mechanisms of universal citizenparticipation in regulatory processes; constraint ofunsustainable demographic and economic policies; andavoidance of war. There is likely to be little disagreementthat these principles, drafted largely for conduct of nationsamong nations, are indeed necessary and worthwhile. Itremains obvious, however, that they are not intended aspractical guides for companies or individuals seekingsustainability.UN Environmental Management of Industrial Estates:A 1997 report prepared by the UN EnvironmentProgramme Industry and Environment office addressedindustrial estates and their imperatives, putting forth keyprinciples and approaches:

The precautionary principle

Integration

Environmental planning

Ecological design

Total quality management

Cleaner production and resource recovery

Industrial ecology.Intended for application in industrial parks, districts, zones,clusters, processing zones, development zones, and othertypes of intensive business, office, science, research, high-tech and eco-industrial parks, the Industrial Estatesguidelines were the first to make a case for unified

management approaches, concepts and minimum standards.A very useful set of Worksheets are provided, along withbrief cases describing possible eco-efficiencies inindustrial estates. Like the Rio Declaration and otherUNEP documents, however, there are no requirements orspecific formulations provided for a given industrial facilityto approach sustainability. This work is, nonetheless, asignificant contribution toward action.World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian

Development Bank, Latin American-Caribbean

Initiative, Inter-American Development Bank, USAID

and Others: Much of the specific work on sustainabledevelopment topics, including some on mining and a greatdeal on energy, agriculture, transportation and industrialtechnologies, has been done through special projects of

these enormously important institutions and organizations.Technology transfer from industrialized nations todeveloping countries and supporting pilot projectinvestment are critical priorities.Foundations and NGOs: Despite painful losses ineconomic downturns of the 20th-21st Century transition,private foundations remain among the most importantplayers in conceptualizing the meaning of sustainabledevelopment, particularly in the developing world.Other Recent Sustainable Development Work: A greatdeal of publishing has occurred around the generalsustainability topic, most relevantly directed at sustainablebusinesses and business opportunities. Most well known

have been: Hawken, Lovins and Lovins,Natural Capitalism;

Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce;

Daily and Ellison, The New Economy of Nature;

Robert, The Natural Step; and

Wackernagle, Our Ecological Footprint;

Storm, The Restoration Economy;

McDonough and Braungart, Cradle to Cradle.Less well known, but of equal or greater depth andspecificity are:

Romm, Cool Companies;

Nattrass and Altomare, The Natural Step forBusiness;

Lyle, Regenerative Design for SustainableDevelopment;

UNEP Working Group on Sustainable ProductDevelopment

Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD)

Consortium on Green Design and Manufacturing(CGDM);

ASTM and ISO, numerous standards forsustainable systems, products and materials

And, perhaps most useful, a veritable explosion from asingle writer, Chris Maser:

Maser, Sustainable Community Development;

Maser, Ecological Diversity in SustainableDevelopment;

Maser and Silberstein, Land-Use Planning forSustainable Development;

Maser, Beaton and Smith, Setting the Stage forSustainability, a Citizens Handbook;

Maser and Beaton, Reuniting Economy andEcology in Sustainable Development.

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In the first, Maser elaborates the ten elements of anecologically-centered and, simultaneously, community-centered vision of sustainable development:

First Element: Understanding and accepting theInviolate Physical Principles Governing Natures

Dynamics Second Element: Understanding and Accepting That

We Do Not and Cannot Manage Nature

Third Element: Understanding and Accepting ThatWe Make an Ecosystem More Fragile When We AlterIt

Fourth Element: Understanding and Accepting ThatWe Must Reinvest in Living Systems Even as WeReinvest in Business

Fifth Element: Understanding and Accepting ThatOnly a Unified Systemic World View Is a SustainableWorld View

Sixth Element: Accepting Our Ignorance and

Trusting Our Intuition, While Doubting OurKnowledge

Seventh Element: Specifying What Is to Be Sustained

Eighth Element: Understanding and Accepting ThatSustainability Is a Continual Process, Not a Fixed EndPoint

Ninth Element: Understanding, Accepting, and BeingAccountable for Intergenerational Equity

Tenth Element: Understanding, Accepting and BeingAccountable for Ecological Limitations to LandOwnership and the Rights of Private Property.

Maser contends that, sustainable development is anongoing, locally directed community process, not a fixed

end point. Sustainable community development integrateshuman values based on the intellect and the intuitive, thematerial and the spiritual. As a shared vision ofsocial/environmental sustainability within a fluid systemdevoid of quick fixes, sustainable community developmentis integrated learning, communication, and work for thebenefit of both the present and the future, because todayschoices become tomorrows consequences. He asserts,further, that, economics without humility is every bit asdangerous as science without morality. To achieve thebalance of energy necessary to maintain the sustainabilityof ecosystems, we must focus our questions, both social andscientific, toward understanding the physical/biological

governance of those systems. Then we must find the moralcourage and political will to direct our personal andcollective energy toward living within the constraintsdefined by ecosystem sustainability and not bypolitical/economic desires. (Maser, SustainableCommunity Development, Principles and Concepts).

In aggregate, these bodies of thought, with someimportant qualifications and refinements, establish anoverarching vision, within which we may begin toconceptualize a mining industry that may approach

sustainability --- indeed, mustapproach sustainability if it isto sustain itself financially and economically.Sustainability Characterized: Sustainability is not just atechnological or economic/financial problem, though itcertainly must integrate these considerations into its

constantly-adapting responses. Concepts of sustainability,sustainable development or specific sustainable activities,such as mining, must commence from recognition thatsustainability is part myth, part vision, and part goal, orelusive objective. Sustainability is not a badge, not anaward, not a plaque by the door. It is neither a statusbestowed nor a claim made legitimately, nor is it anendpoint reached by the application of prescriptions,proscriptions, or both.

As much art as science, as much ethics as regulatoryoversight, as much an alternation between restraint andexertion as economic consistency, sustainability is acondition we can say a system has reached only after it has

done so. Given the thermodynamics of human existence,which are more conducive to entropy than to creation ornatural restoration, sustainability may be seen as anenvironmental asymptote, never reached, but onlyapproached, even if we strive as rigorously as we are able.Sustainability is, however, by no means as mechanistic asthis. In fact, discussion of sustainability concepts requiresestablishment of some sort of philosophical and ethicalframework, precisely because this is the part that is mostlacking, due to targeted suspension by governments,corporations and individuals in positions of power overindustries most in need of revectoring course towardsustainability. The considerable effort that will be requiredto approach a sustainable condition is justified by thechance to maintain stable environmental, ecological, socialand economic conditions, relatively free of risk that systemswill fail or collapse.Environmental Risk and Pascals Wager, Global

Variation: Businesses frequently speak of need forcertainty, for minimization of risk. If 17th Century Frenchphilosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal were alive todayto consider our current gamble with global warming andother planetary-scale and regional environmental changesthat may be attributable to humans, he might propose anenvironmental, ecological and socio-economicsustainability counterpart to his famous Pascals Wager.This Wager a theological reasoning, was meant to argue

for the existence of a Christian God. Pascal, fascinated bygambling and gamblers, predicated his argument for beliefin the existence of God thusly: If we believe in God, andlive and behave accordingly, but are wrong (i.e., it turns outthat there is no God, no afterlife), then what we will havelost is transitory, of only passing importance. If, however,we disbelieve in God and live and behave accordingly, andare wrong (God and hell exist), then what we will have lostis eternal.

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We postulate here an environmental wager, by analogyto that of Pascal, appealing both to enlightened self-interestand to sense of community, including all levels from familyto nation to globe. Recognizing this environmental wageris fundamental to the individual and organizational restraint

necessary to live and operate within ecological constraints.Applying Pascals Wager to the looming

environmental perfect waves of pollution, resourcedepletion, socio-economic instability and to theconspicuous threat of global climate change, the wagerconsists of the following: If we wager that natural andenvironmental systems are of utmost importance to humanindividuals and communities and also have intrinsic value,we live and work accordingly, and are wrong (i.e., globalwarming and other possible trends do not come to fruition),then we will have sacrificed little. Indeed, we may evenhave arrived at efficiencies such as for energy systems thatnot only impose less cost, but that accrue wealth. If,

however, we wager that natural systems such as globalclimate are insignificant and not subject to humaninfluences, we live and work accordingly, and are wrong(i.e., global warming or other possible catastrophic trendsoccur), then what we will have lost will be functionallygeological in duration and disruptive of human quality oflife, as well as of ecological systems, in the extreme. Thecarrying capacity of Earth and most human economies willbe disrupted for an interval longer than the term of civilizedhistory.

Sustainability is, therefore, one way to measure the riskof our wagers, environmental, ecological, economic andsocial, for ourselves, our communities, contextualecosystems, and our environment at all scales. The wagersof industrial Western societies have been perilous, byecological measures. Humans, after all, are as dependenton ecosystems as any other organism; perhaps moreso.

The archeological, paleontological and stratigraphicrecord tell us that earths habitability is episodic,characterized by favorable periods lasting thousands or tensof thousands of years over parts of the planet, at minimum,and much longer at some locations. We live still andforever in this paleo-ecological context, availing ourselvesof the hospitable intervals, fitting our notions ofsustainability into such a naturally hostile, but utterlyunique planet. Earth First makes an amusingbumpersticker, but the actual earth is the only one we know.

Sustainability Specific to Place and Time: Anysustainability vision, goal or set of objectives with a chanceto succeed should be specific to place and time, thoughlong-term of vision and globally aware. It follows that thissustainability vision should be constantly reviewed,monitored, adapted and revised to accommodate newinformation, changing science and public policy, changingdemographics, changing economic conditions and markets,

and organizational and community directions. For most ofus, sustainability did not mean the same thing on 9-12-01 asit meant on 9-10-01, nor could it have retained validity, if itexisted as a concept during those days, in locations such asAfghanistan or Lower Manhattan. Conditions are constantly

changing, sometimes precipitously, but usually so graduallythat many major changes escape our attention.Nonetheless, place must be understood thoroughly inhistorical dimensions, and must be projected into a future asdistant as possible, addressing alternative future scenarios.

Sustainability is High Expectations. An adequatelyholistic approach to sustainability is here predicated on thefollowing expectations of what would exist were we toapproach sustainability. :

Enduring, relatively stable ecological systems,measured by biodiversity, wildlife and humancarrying capacities that these ecosystems

support, fully considering most vulnerablesubsystem habitat elements at appropriate scales(e.g., local clean water, global climate stability);

Enduring local, regional and global humancommunities, essentially stable in consumption ofland and other fixed resources, sharing withnature, reliant on energy, water and materials fromrenewable sources, precautionary in environmentalmanagement policies, and restorative in bothpolicies and investments, seeking always to correctpast damages;

Enduring economic systems and system members,adaptable and responsive to changing markets and

conditions, with the assistance of cooperatingbusinesses, organizations and governments, andexercising appropriate technologies at appropriatescales to achieve greatest efficiencies, convertingproblems into opportunities wherever andwhenever possible.

Appropriate Solutions at Appropriate Scales: Bothproblems and opportunities occur at large scale, small scaleand everything in between. This is true of responses, aswell. It is inherent in our business and governance culture,however, to strongly prefer big box responses to everychallenge we face. Need tax revenues? Recruit WalMart.Need to clean up a contaminated site? Dig the entire siteup and put it over there. We see the world much too simplyand much too narrowly, whether out of laziness, avarice orculturally-accepted norms. Too much attention is directedat the bottom line, we often hear, and not enough --- if any--- at the large-scale phenomena around us, even trendsshowing signs of approaching crises. Challenges or needsperceived to be small are generally neglected, unless thereis PR value or marketing advantage inherent in response.

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mining giants, development agencies and institutionsspecializing in mining, and guided by the World BusinessCouncil for Sustainable Development and the InternationalInstitute for Environment and Development, the Mining,Metals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) initiative

began in 1998 and ended in 2002 (MMSD-IIEDpublications available at http://www.iied.org/mmsd/).Initiated by nine major mining companies and conductedover a period of less than four years, the landmark MMSDprocess was one of the most extensive and intensive suchefforts in the history of any industrial sector. Constructive,useful systems were formulated to guide mine- or company-specific objectives, principles and checklists, workingtoward sustainable mineral resources, secure social licenseto operate, and sustainable contextual environments,economies and communities.

Important products came from MMSD:

Mining for the Future: Main Reportaddressed a set of

primary concerns of the mining industry, large volumewaste, mine closure and abandoned mines. BestPractice is suggested as a process, rather than as aseries of design elements. This echoes approachesemployed in many other industries, conspicuouslyagricultural and forestry industries that seek to redefinethemselves for approaching sustainability, employingbest management practices (BMPs). Sustainabledevelopment drivers are outlined: environmental,socio-economic, corporate and regulatory.Environmental considerations are explored in termsof waste disposal. Through appendices, the reportintroduces working papers on large volume waste,

closure, abandoned mines and other policy issues. Sustainability Indicators and Sustainability

Performance Management establishes methods ofmeasurement of sustainability. The report arguesthat tailor made approaches to developing indicators,that address specific stakeholder concerns and thatinform mainstream corporate strategy and supportcompanies future approaches to managing sustainabledevelopment issues, are more likely to contribute tosound investment decision processes than approacheswhich prioritise reporting against generic off the shelfindicators. Notwithstanding, it is suggested that thelatter can inform the former; and, that there are meritsto developing combined top-down expert derived

and bottom up stakeholder scoped approaches tosustainability performance management.(Sustainability Indicators, Warhurst, MMSD, p. 3)

Finding the Way Forward: how could voluntary actionmove mining towards sustainable development? Afteran updated summary of pressures and drivers, thisreport explores voluntary initiatives and the prospect ofthird-party certification, an approach far into process inthe forest-products industry, with varying degrees of

success. A 2001 workshop on Voluntary Initiativesfor the Mineral Sector drew the following conclusionsuseful to this discussion:

Objectives should go beyond legal requirements.

Flexibility in application is needed.

Consistent principles are important. The scale of application should be appropriate.

Voluntary initiatives should complement otherinstruments.

Voluntary third-party verification should be used.(Finding the Way Forward, MMSD, Box 3.1, p.22)

Finding Common Ground: Indigenous Peoples andTheir Association with the Mining Sector

Room to Manoeuvre? Mining, biodiversity andprotected areas

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining: Challenges andOpportunities

Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals andSustainable Development, the Final Report of MMSD.This report is one of the most important ever to beproduced by and for the mining industry. Through aprocess led by Richard Sandbrook, Breaking NewGround provides a uniquely complete and balancedoverview of what is required for mining to becomesustainable. Like Mining for the Future, the MMSDFinal Report emphasizes Best Practice, and its localsolutions:

A frequent response to questions about whatconstitutes best practice is that it all depends.Best practice should be defined by decentralized

and iterative processes, not by a fixed set ofparameters that can be read out of a manual.( Breaking New Ground, Executive Summary, p.xxiii)

Beginning with review of sustainable developmenthistory, concepts and principles, the report contributesenormously to the discussion of process to get tosustainability:

The on-going theoretical debates aboutsustainable development should not obscure itsusefulness as a decision-making tool. Perhaps oneway of understanding how to use the idea ofcapital [referring to concepts of natural capital]

is to divide decisions into three groups [bracketedcomments are the present authors]:

Win-win-win decisions Some decisionsadvance all the goals identified by sustainabledevelopment simultaneously: they improvematerial well-being more equitably, enhancethe environment, strengthen our ability tomanage problems, and pass on enhancedstocks of capital to future generations. Theseare obvious wins and should be acted upon.

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Trade-offdecisions Other decisions willresult in both gains and losses. If the gains aregreat enough and the losers can becompensated [assuming that they are people],the decision should be to proceed. This is the

zone of trade-offs and requires an agreedmechanism for reaching a decision.

No-go decisions A final group of decisionsmay go past some widely accepted limit, suchas destroying critical natural capital ortransgressing fundamental human rights. Ifthese conditions hold, the decision should beto not proceed. ( Breaking New Ground, p.22)

This conceptual clarity and many othercontributions of Breaking New Groundto theliterature of sustainable mining will mark its place.There is constructive, double-edged frankness,

also:There are also financial costs associatedwith moving towards sustainabledevelopment. In some cases, these costsmay outweigh the benefits ofimprovements. Though this report talksof minimizing impacts, in economicterms the aim is to reduce the impacts tothe point where the additional costs ofreducing these impacts would outweighthe additional benefits. Moreover, thecosts of reaching the goals of sustainabledevelopment have to be apportioned in a

way that ensures that economies remainsufficiently viable to meet the needs ofhumankind for development and forvarious products and services which inturn implies that the prices paid forproducts must reflect the true costs ofproviding them. Some change will beachieved by win-win efficiency gains(such as a reduction in energy use), butmuch more will involve internalizingcosts that have been outside the marketsystem thus far. (Breaking New Ground,p. 22.)

The democratic bases of MMSDs envisioned

process are most visible in the reportsobservations about multistakeholder processes:

A broad-based, inclusive process ofinitiation is fundamental to thesuccess of the effort.

The time frame must take intoaccount the differing capacities ofparticipants as well as the need for atimely outcome.

No one group should own access tothe process or its follow-up.

A group that is trusted for itsdiversity and its insights must begiven primary responsibility for

steering the process on behalf of allothers.

No process should override theimportance of local endowments(cultural, environmental, andeconomic); thus decentralizationshould be the guiding rule.

The initial scope must be agreed toby all, and be subject to revision asthe dialogue unfolds.

The process cannot succeed if anyone stakeholder attempts prematurelyto claim the high ground in public, or

works in private to circumvent dueprocess.

The rules of evidence are crucial everyone needs to work to the samestandards of rigour, honesty, andtransparency.

Any financial resources appliedshould not affect the relationship; atthe same time, appropriateresponsibilities for follow-up have tobe recognized. ( Breaking NewGround, MMSD Final Report,Executive Summary Box ES-2, p.

xv) The Life Cycle of Copper, Its Co-Products and By-

Products, Ayres, Ayres and Rade, (MMSD 2002) is themost thorough exploration of a single metals productgroup done applying life-cycle assessment (LCA)methodologies. Ayres and Ayres are also among theworlds leading exponents of industrial ecology,specializing in materials life cycle analysis and flows.

GMI and ICMM: The Global Mining Initiative (GMI),an organization formed by twenty-eight of the worldslargest mining, metals and minerals companies andheadquartered at Rio Tintos London location, was

established in the 1990s. MMSD was sponsored by manyof the GMI participants. Since the 2002 completion ofMMSD, GMI has initiated follow-up through theInternational Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM). Asreported in MMSDs Finding the Way Forward, ICMMhas taken up the task of developing the findings ofMMSD into concrete actions through its membercompanies. An ICMM Declaration on SustainableDevelopment was launched at the Global Mining Initiative

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conference in Toronto in May 2002. The ICMM TorontoDeclaration stated the following (bold face type ICMMs):

ICMM will:

Expand the current ICMM Sustainable

Development Charter to include appropriateareas recommended in the MMSD Report.

Develop best-practice protocols that encouragethird-party verification and public reporting.

Engage in constructive dialogue with keyconsituencies.

Assist Members in understanding the conceptsand application of sustainable development.

Together with the World Bank and others, seek toenhance effective community developmentmanagement tools and systems.

Promote the concept of integrated materialsmanagement throughout the minerals value chain

wherever relevant. Promote sound science-based regulatory and

material-choice decisions that encourage marketaccess and the safe use, reuse and recycling ofmetals and minerals.

Create an emergency response regional registerfor the global mining, metals and mineralsindustry.

In partnership with IUCN-The WorldConservation Union and others, seek to resolve thequestions associated with protected areas andmining. (Finding the Way Forward, MMSD,Box 1.2, p. 6)

UNEP MRF: The United Nations EnvironmentProgramme Mineral Resources Forum (MRF) describesitself:

The Mineral Resources Forum (MRF) is aninformation resource for issues related to mining,minerals, metals and sustainable development. It seeksto engage a diverse set of users from governments,mining, mineral and metal companies and otherconcerned civil society institutions, and to promote anintegrated, inter-disciplinary approach to mineral issuesand policies. The MRF is designed to accommodate abroad and growing range of technical and socio-

economic issues that arise during the life cycle ofmineral resources, i.e. as resources are: discovered andexplored; exploited, transformed and traded; andfinally consumed, disposed of, or recycled. (MRFwebsite, http://www.natural-resources.org/minerals/aboutf.htm)MRF has actively promoted information exchange

among Forum participants, and publishes occasional papersof relevance to the industry. These papers are generallyavailable in digital format on the MRF Library website

(http://www.mineralresourcesforum.org/library/index.htm).Often topically specialized, they range from training andtechnology screening to environmental problem casestudies, environmental literacy workshops and discussionsof human rights in resource development.

IDRC: The International Development Research Centre,with the World Bank, sponsored and published a notablework,Large Mines and the Community: Socioeconomic and

Environmental Effects in Latin America, Canada and

Spain, edited by McMahon and Remy. Utilizingcomparative case studies, six distinct areas are analyzed fortheir reflections on sustainability of mining operations andsurrounding communities and their economies.

Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Mining

The concept of industrial ecology (IE) includes both

the metaphor and the necessity of ecological analysis,focusing on place in a sense larger than immediate site.IE offers strategies for converting present and previousneglected resources into economically viable materials andenergy resources, all contributing to the possibility ofenduring businesses and employment. These forms ofeconomic prosperity, in turn, may build values andcapacities for further economic growth. Where landholdings associated with mining can be converted to non-mining urban developments, the economic value level ofthe lands proximate to communities that are prospering byIE practices stands to be higher, more long-lasting and morecapable of surviving economic shocks associated with agiven commodity market than is a less diversified, less self-aware community. Diversity in biological systems is a keysurvival attribute. Diversity in industrial ecosystems,similarly, is key to community prosperity, survival andvalues.

Supplemented, clarified and extended by the rapidly-developing discipline of industrial ecology (IE), the recentMMSD, UNEP/MRF and ICMM visioning of sustainablemining may be forged into a practically constructiveapproach to sustainable mining in sustainable communities,economies and environments, at appropriate scales.

Making sustainability pay for everyone, includingmining ventures, surrounding communities and theenvironment as a whole, is the problem at hand. Industrial

ecology provides a generalized, adaptable methodology, aset of practical business approaches to these enormouslycomplex challenges, without losing sight of ecologicalresponsibilities. By IE application, practitioners canintegrate community-based notions of sustainability witheconomic development oriented toward high-efficiencytechnologies, co-located industrial/business clusters,collaborative commitments to resource optimization, and

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business development for the community as a whole, againat all scales.IE Origins and Development: Industrial ecology is a toolof relatively recent origin and of rapidly-growingpopularity. Ernie Lowe, author of a number of industrial

ecology texts, characterizes IE as an interdisciplinaryframework for designing and operating industrial systemsas living systems that are interdependent with naturalsystems. (Indigo Development website,www.indigodev.com).

The analogy to natural ecosystems is loose, not to betaken literally beyond that of a model. It asserts thatmodels of non-human biological systems and theirinteractions in nature are instructive for industrial systemsthat we design and operate. An overarching goal of IE isthe establishment of an industrial system that cyclesvirtually all of the materials it uses and releases a minimalamount of waste to the environment. (Industrial Ecology:

Some Directions for Research, pre-publication draft,Rockefeller U.). Because of the proprietary nature ofcompanies, we are restricted here to the part of theindustrial system for which we can obtain information.

Energy, land, water, jobs and ecosystems are the mostlikely categories of attention on mine sites. Visualizingecosystems and biological organisms, as IE guides us to do,promotes recognition in mining industries (as elsewhere) ofmetabolism, material and energy flows, waste utilization byother organisms (business entities), and symbioticrelationships among subsystems --- and even predatoryrelationships that may exist. Flows are as familiar toindustry as to biological and ecological sciences, but theseflows are usually seen almost strictly in resource economicterms, only as materials, energy, costs and cash flows.

Founded in the rising disciplines of ecology andbiogeochemistry, drawing on paleo-ecology and the basicearth sciences, mining industrial ecology must also drawupon anthropology, philosophy and ethics. Integrating theseways of thinking into sustainable mining developed by theauthorities here reviewed affords a legitimate chance ofachieving whole mine whole community whole planetsustainability. Fundamental principles are needed, however,to add to the repertory. These life-cycle analysisfundamentals must be put on the table in order to establishthe necessity for some responsible methodology, whetherIE or another approach, if sustainable mining is to be the

goal. Mining wastes and environmental contaminants are

usually the result of incomplete cycles, often ofincomplete or poorly chosen biogeochemical, physicalor process cycles. Acid mine drainage, hugeaccumulations of mine waste, and massive releases ofcarbon to increase climate change probabilities areexamples. Fields of scientific awareness necessary forapproach to sustainable mining must, therefore, include

biogeochemistry and global biogeochemical cycles(ref. Schlesingers Biogeochemistry: An Analysis ofGlobal Change, and the work of Vaclav Smil, Cyclesof Life: Civilization and the Biosphere, and Carbon-

Nitrogen-Sulfur: Human Interference in Grand

Biospheric Cycles.) Mining, and industries in general,must accept responsibility for creation of underutilizedbyproducts.

Historic wastes or past accumulations of miningwastes must still be addressed in order to restoreenvironmental stability. This follows from acceptanceof responsibility for byproducts and incomplete cycles.Past mining waste constitutes an environmental debt;therefore, dealing with it must not be rewarded as avoluntary initiative even though our often weakenvironmental laws may not require corrective action(e.g., grandfathered waste rock dumps, oracidic/metals-laden ground water emerging years after

mines cease pumping.) Restoration must not be viewed as literal replication

of what preceded mining, but rather theimplementation of what is necessary for prevention offurther environmental releases or public healthendangerment. Restoration , consequently, pursues thehighest-and-best alternative that benefits ecosystems,community or planet, preferably all.

Resolution of one mining contamination occurrencemust not jeopardize another ecosystem or habitat in thecourse of remediating the first.

Renewable resource development, given theuniversal threat of global warming, must assume very

high trade-off value, where win-win-win steps arenot possible (Breaking New Ground).

Embodied energy is the energy required to extract,process, manufacture, and assemble products forconsumers, including the typically-multipletransportation events required, the operation andmaintenance energy during use, and the end-of-cycleenergy to reuse, disassemble, recycle or dispose of thematerial. Embodied energy is in every product ofmining, including finished commodity products and thewaste byproducts of mining and minerals processing.Tailings, waste rock, process water, contaminatedground water and soils --- all contain embodied energy,which is wasted if these byproducts are not utilized.

Wildlife and humans are; they exist, and have asmuch right to exist as any other being, including themanagers and operators of mining companies,government environmental regulators, employees, andcommunity members. Existence precedes essence,Sartre maintained; life is more important than values.This eco-existential point is recognition of fact, not abelief or a religion.

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Embodied death is a harsh-sounding conceptpostulated to recognize that much of what industrydoes kills living beings in nature, and sometimespeople in communities. Pollution badly managed,habitats altered, survival essentials removed, any of

these can kill. Once this killing is accepted bydecision-makers, where is the line drawn? Impactsmust be recognized, even if they occur at remotelocations, recognition that is more likely to be sharedas the world becomes pressed toward margins bothnatural and socio-economic

Land-use planning is inextricably interrelated toplanning for sustainable mining. Mining companieshave imposed buffers as figurative moats, ormechanisms of isolation, when what is appropriate forsustainable mining is community integration andinvolvement. In instances such as the one we willexamine in our case study, the nature of relevant land-

use planning is urban, recreational and restorative.This is not the case for very remote locations, but nolocation can escape ecological, community and globalenvironmental necessities in place-specificconfigurations. This location-driven planningimperative imposes additional complexity, but alsooffers enormous opportunity.

Co-location (shared use of sites) is critical to industrialecology. Co-location must be made possible, however,by striving for zero-emissions, if not zero-dischargeperformance standards (light and noise included), andemphasis on public safety, in order to allow otheractivities, including residences, to locate nearby. Once

this threshold is crossed, activities may be clusteredthat formerly were required by regulation or ordinanceto be widely separated. Planning and zoning barriers toco-location must be dealt with through localgovernmental ordinances and enforcement allowances.Without co-location of mixed functions, it is difficult toestablish shared resource flows, such as cooperativeenergy or materials exchanges in business clusters.

Hope is the ultimate human basis of sustainability, andis also fundamental to every sustainable community, atall concentric circles of scale.

Kalundborg and IEs Beginnings: Industrial ecologysmost famous poster child, illustrating basic IE principles,is that of Kalundborg, Denmark. Without setting out tobecome anything beyond an efficient cluster of activities,the Kalundborg system was established to utilizebyproducts of two major energy producers/suppliers:

1,500 MW ASNAES coal-fired electrical power plant

4 to 5 million tons/year Statoil petroleum refiningcomplex.

The electric power plant sells process steam to the oilrefinery, from which it receives fuel gas and coolingwater.

Sulfur removed from the petroleum goes to the Kemirasulfuric acid plant.

Byproduct heat from the two energy generators is usedfor district heating of homes and commercialestablishments, as well as to heat greenhouses and afish farming operation.

Steam from the electrical power plant is used by the $2billion/year Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical plant, a firmthat produces industrial enzymes and 40% of theworlds supply of insulin.

This plant generates a biological sludge that is used byarea farms for fertilizer.

Calcium sulfate produced as a byproduct of sulfurremoval by lime scrubbing from the electrical plant isused by the Gyproc company to make wallboard. The

wallboard manufacturer also uses clean-burning gasfrom the petroleum refinery as fuel.

Fly ash generated from coal combustion goes intocement and roadbed fill.

Lake Tisso serves as a fresh water source. Otherexamples of efficient materials utilization associatedwith Kalundborg include use of sludge from the plantthat treats water and wastes from the fish farmsprocessing plant for fertilizer and blending of excessyeast from Novo Nordisks insulin production as asupplement to swine feed. (Manahan, Industrial

Ecology: Environmental Chemistry and Hazardous

Wastes, p. 64.)

Kalundborg developed over decades, beginning in the1960s, not by premeditated design, but rather in response torecognition of possible mutual benefits. It is the best-documented IE occurrence, but far from the only example.Literally countless examples could be cited of folksystems, motivated by common-sense desires for efficiencyor waste-avoidance, if not by outright economicdesperation. In some cultures, the avoidance of damage tonature and to wildlife is a stricture, a fundamental of thecultures relationship to nature. Few, if any, of thesecultures would recognize the relatively uncaring resourceprofligacy of the American frontier West.

Place is at the center of an IE approach to sustainable

mining. As many of the works cited previously (Maser,MMSDs Breaking New Ground, Finding the WayForward, and Mining for the Future) have emphasized,formulaic, generically packaged methods probably wontwork. There has been significant previous work to applyindustrial ecology to mining:

Ayres, Ayres and Rade (The Life Cycle of Copper, itsCo-Products and By-Products, MMSD). Robert U.Ayres and Leslie W. Ayres also co-authored one of themost important texts of IE, Industrial Ecology:

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Towards Closing the Materials Cycle, a lengthy workfocused on minerals, metals, and other industrialmaterials, including energy resources.

Multiple essays in The Industrial Green Game: Implications for Environmental Design and

Management, published by the National Academy ofEngineering. In addition to a very clear synopsis of theKalundborg example, essays by Frosch, Allenby,Stahel and others are important contributions to IE. Anessay by then Kennecott Utah Copper V.P. PrestonChiaro outlines company environmental management.

Kennecott: Case Study for IE-Based, Community-

Centered Sustainable MiningKennecott Utah Copper is located in the Oquirrh

Mountain range, on the west side of the Jordan RiverValley, south of the Great Salt Lake (generally referred toas the Salt Lake Valley). The Valley forms the dividing

line between the Rocky Mountain physiographic provinceand the Great Basin province, of which the Oquirrhs arepart. Climatically semi-arid, the highest peaks of theOquirrh range reach 10,000 or more feet above sea level,while the Wasatch to the east reach approximately 12,000.Precipitation shapes much of lifes possibilities in thisregion, with most (85% or more) falling as snow in highelevations. Valleys receive as little as 11 inches per year,while some areas of the Wasatch average nearly 60inches/annum, and of the Oquirrhs, around 40inches/annum. The water storage mechanism of high-country snowpack is, in itself, one of the great resources ofthe region, augmented greatly by typically enormous valley

aquifer storage capacity. The Great Salt Lake is, of course,very saline and cannot be used.Kennecotts mine is perched on the upper east flank of

the northern section of the Oquirrh Mountains, a rangeoriented nearly straight north-south, extending from theGreat Salt Lake on the north, southward approximately 32miles, beyond which a low ridge continues on to connect tothe Tintic range, where the historic mining area of Eureka islocated.

Kennecott Utah Copper Company, with its huge mine,smelter, refinery and post-mining land use conversion plan,is illustrative of the extent and variety of obligations andopportunities inherent in urban-proximate mine life,presenting a useful case for postulating a regional model of

sustainable mining. A mosaic of requited and unrequitedsustainability vision, so far, Kennecott occupies a positionnext to a rapidly-growing urban area that renders the site ina category of its own. As an extreme mine-site type that wemight term, urban-margin, it is also extreme in itsillustrative value for problems, opportunities andunresolved dilemmas.

Geographic, Historic, and Demographic Context:

Utahs mining scene came to life in the years after theCalifornia Gold Rush. Silver and gold began to pour fromthe canyons of the Wasatch east of the Salt Lake valley,especially around Park City, and from the Tintic range to

the southwest. Discovered in the early 1860s, the Binghammetals-mining district developed over the post-Civil Waryears as a tumultuously enthusiastic beehive of placer andunderground operations in the Oquirrh Mountains, whichform the Valleys western flank. Silver, lead, zinc andcopper were mined from skarn deposits and intrusions intolimestone until the turn of the 20 th Century, but the knowndeposits of copper porphyry were left largely untouchedbecause of inability to feasibly process the ore.Concurrently, world copper markets were experiencing aroller-coaster ride, driven increasingly by the buddingcopper magnates of Butte, Montana, some with Utahfinancial backing. Porphyry copper was safely in the

ground, for the moment.Daniel Jacklings metallurgical leap at the beginning of

the century, however, initiated the mining and processing ofporphyry copper, the worlds first successful attempt tomake mining low-grade copper ores pay off. From this actof genius came Kennecott, the open-pit Bingham Mine, andthe episodic consolidation of mining properties in theOquirrhs. Lands initially held as federal lands, primarilyNational Forest, were eventually turned over to Kennecott,and the company purchased one after another of thehundreds of claims and active mines in the area. Thisconsolidation continued for at least a half-century on bothsides of the range, resulting in the present companyholdings of approximately 92,000 acres (approximately 142sq.mi.), 90% of it in Salt Lake County, from the crest of theOquirrh range eastward. The Barneys Canyon Gold Mine,immediately north of the Bingham pit, has now beenclosed, though ore leaching continues. The Bingham Mine,Smelter and Refinery settled down to becoming the nationssecond-largest copper mine, producing about 15% of thetotal, supplemented by 400,000 ounces of gold per year andseveral million ounces of silver/annum.

Around half of these properties are in the valley orfoothills, areas that had become populated with mine andsmelter workers in minings early days. As the companypurchased more and more of these lower-elevation lands,they were gradually cleared of habitation, except for the

former company town of Copperton at the mouth ofBingham Canyon itself. Thus, a large liability andenvironmental management buffer was placed betweenKennecott operations and the towns and most of theagriculture in urban outskirts. Now, as the BinghamCanyon Mine enters its last few decades of operations, it isone of the largest (if not the largest) of open pit coppermines in the world, and one of the historic leaders in metalsproduction, including copper, gold, silver and molybdenum.

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Environmental and Community Context, Problems and

Effects:

Soils: Kennecott has expended possibly more effortand resources performing source-control cleanups than

any other mine --- in excess of $200 million since1990. This has dealt relatively thoroughly withcontaminated soils, which one would expect to be aconsequence of poorly understood and sporadicallymanaged fine-particle suspended and dissolved miningwastes and leach fluids. Tailings, evaporates, sludgesand other deposits of fugitive materials in soils werediagnosed and surgically, but almost completely,removed and placed into repositories at severallocations.

Waste Rock: From an open pit mine 2.5 miles indiameter and nearly 1/3 mile deep, from whichapproximately seven billion tons of overburden and ore

have been removed (~450,000 tons/day of overburden,at present), it is not surprising that there areapproximately five billion tons of waste rockdistributed on hillsides and in canyons around theBingham Canyon Mine, and additional quantitiesaround the Barneys Canyon Gold Mine pits. Thesewaste rock dumps consist of widely varying rocktypes, with varying sulfide mineral content, dependingon what qualified as ore in any given set of market andproductivity conditions.

Water: Acidic waters form spontaneously asbacterially-mediated pyrite oxidation occurs in thepresence of moisture and oxygen in waste rock dumps.

Because most underground mining was in limestone orskarn host rocks from the Lark area or south, there wassignificant acid neutralization potential, alleviating acidformation from underground mining somewhat. Fordecades of Kennecotts operations in the copper-bearing porphyry deposits, however, covering morethan one-half century, acidic leach water formationfrom these less neutralizing rock types becameextreme. Observing that it carried significant metals,leach water was encouraged and eventually engineeredat Kennecott, as at some other contemporary mines,sometimes with enhancement of applied sulfuric acidfrom processing, to leach metals by design from wasterock.

This became a legitimate method of dumpleaching for copper recovery (ref. Brierly,Microbiological Mining, Scientific American, Aug.1982 V.247/No.2). Leach water of very low pH/highacidity (as low as pH 2.5, with extremely high mineralacidity from dissolved aluminum, iron, copper andother metals) was created in very great quantities, somecaptured but some fugitive. Recognizing the resource-recovery potential of leach waters, Kennecott built a

cementation (precipitation) plant to exchange scrapiron for copper, located at Copperton. Collection ofleach water for conveyance to the Precipitation Plantwas haphazard for many years, conveyed throughunlined canals to an unlined reservoir. The system was

upgraded in the 1960s, and again in the 1980s, but theconveyance canals and the primary reservoir remainedunlined, resulting in enormous rates of leach waterleakage into the aquifer, reportedly between onemillion and seven million gallons per day. In the early1990s, the leach collection system was diverted toallow removal of some 2.5 million cubic yards ofacidic tailings and sludge from the reservoir basin toallow competent lining of a new reservoir complex.Concurrently, Kennecott constructed large pipelines toreplace poorly-lined canals in the collection system.The improvement culminated in the construction ofmore than two dozen concrete cutoff walls in critical

bedrock drainages, intercepting most, if not all, leachwater, and diverting nearly all the flow into the newpipe conveyance system. The scale and severity ofground water contamination prior to these measures,however, may be unprecedented. The bulk of theacid/metals contamination plume and the much moreextensive but less toxic, diluted and partiallyneutralized sulfate plume remain in the ground, thesubject of a state Natural Resource Damage (NRD)Claim seeking resolution. The extensive, affectedaquifer is the core of the NRD complaint, but proposedremediation threatens to relocate these contaminantsof concern to another location that is, from anecological viewpoint, more troublesome than thecontaminations presence in the ground. Selenium andcertain other metals in South End ground water isvery much the subject of present debate, due to itsproposed placement in the Magna TailingsImpoundment or in the Great Salt Lake.

At Kennecotts North End, near the Arthur-Garfield industrial complex that processed much of theoutput of the Bingham Mine, questionable disposal offluids left from electrolytic sludge in precious metalsrefining released great quantities of selenium to groundwater, where it emerged into marshes near the GreatSalt Lake. For several years, this Se-rich water hasbeen diluted and pumped to the Lake, subsequent to

soils cleanup, in order to pump down selenium in theaquifer. This selenium mass transport may be added tothat of the south ground water treatment program whenthey mix in the Lake.

Ground water recharge and surface wateravailability for wildlife have been truncated almostcompletely on the east Oquirrh flank. Until leachwater interception, streams flowed freely, though manyof them from Bingham Creek southward were

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contaminated by mining-generated acidic drainage.During decades of early, relatively crude efforts tointercept leach water, when motivation was for copperrecovery, not environmental protection, water made itsway into these lower drainages only during high-water

episodes or from isolated seeps. For the entire lengthof the Oquirrh Mountains in recent years, however,Kennecott has intercepted the flow of natural streams,essentially cutting off all ground water recharge. Wellsdrilled for monitoring and extraction have alteredhydrological gradients, further eliminating most seeps.Few fresh water occurrences on the surface that mightsupport wildlife remain.

Air: From minings earliest days in andaround the Oquirrh Mountains, smelting and refining,and in some areas, blowing dust, degradedenvironments by high sulfur emissions, smoke fromcoal, and deposition of coal-originated toxins. In the

early 1990s, however, Kennecott began construction ofone of the largest and most advanced copper smeltersin the world, completing startup in the second half ofthe decade. Air emissions from smelting were cut to avery minor percentage of former numbers, perceptiblychanging air quality in the region --- that is, untilgrowth of automobile travel began to overcome thesedramatic improvements.

Blowing dust from the original, nine square mileMagna Tailings Impoundment, now abandoned, hasemerged as a concern during weather episodes whenstrong winds from the west or northwest precedestorms. Although stringent efforts have been made to

cover the surface with vegetation to prevent blowingdust, much work remains. It also remains to be seenwhether or not this strategy can be maintained withoutsignificant nutrient and/or water inputs, especially inthe face of regional impacts of global climate change.

Paleontological, Archeological and HistoricalRemains: Pleistocene Lake Bonneville formed thepre-archeological, and possibly the early archeological,setting for the Kennecott sites significance. Althougha great deal of survey work has been done onarcheological sites, some of it unpublished in areaswhere publication brings risk of vandalism and loss,little paleontological research has been possiblebecause of lack of access.

An exception occurred in the early 1990s, when aKennecott excavation team digging for construction ofone of the leach water cutoff walls exposed bones at adepth of more than fifty feet into apparently previouslyundisturbed soils. Depth indicated great age, so theremains were reported to archeological authorities asrequired by law, even on private property. The samplebones first examined showed the site to be a possiblysignificant Pleistocene or post-Pleistocene zoological

catalog, including giant camel and many species ofsmall mammals. Indications are strong that otherpaleo-environments may have existed along theOquirrh Front, some of which may remain to reflectvery ancient times to science and to community

curiosity. Areas along the northern Oquirrhs,especially in Little Valley and the other valley mouths,were at elevations coincident with long episodes ofLake Bonnevilles shoreline, and may be conducive torich vertebrate paleontological environmentalconditions.

Human occupation of the area as long ago as10,000 years may be indicated by remains in cavesaround the periphery of Lake Bonneville, notably atDanger Cave, near Wendover, NV. Study of theKennecott site may provide opportunity to access sitesless disturbed than elsewhere in the basin, largely dueto the sites sequestering from public access. Fremont

peoples from approximately one thousand or moreyears ago are documented to have populated the JordanRiver Valley. Excavation for contaminated soilsremediation exposed one such site on Bingham Creek,itself. The possibility of other such sites cannot beruled out, since the ancient, pre-settlement environmentmay have been attractive to ancient humans, given itsbiological richness.

Vegetation and Habitats: Any exact catalog of plant-animal associations from pre-settlement times in theOquirrhs and foothills will probably never be known.Such is the extent of disturbance that few, if any,reference ecological communities remain. For all the

decades after settlement of the Salt Lake valley, areaforests were cut aggressively for building, mining,industry and fuels, until, on the Oquirrh Mountains, theforests were nearly completely removed. At first, thiswas largely for mine timbers for the hundreds ofunderground miles of tunnels, shafts, adits and drifts (aUSGS publication from the 1960s suggested that morethan 1,000 miles honeycomb the Oquirrhs in theBingham District, descending as deep as 2,500 feetabove sea level), a mining complex that must haveconsumed many millions of board feet of timbers.

Fuel wood use also contributed to deforestation inyears preceding extensive access to coal resources ofeastern Utah and Wyoming. Cattle and sheep grazing

further denuded many of the high valleys and meadowsin the late 19th Century and early 20th. In the 1870s, theWests self-made naturalist and environmental crusaderof the Sierra Nevada, John Muir, kept a journal of ahike on a trail near the present site of the KennecottSmelter, remarking on the variety of flowering plants,but failing to mention forests. Coal burning, however,may have reduced burning of wood as fuel, but it

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caused widespread air quality degradation, withprofound impacts on vegetation.

Intensive early smelting and refining essentiallydenuded many square miles of the northern OquirrhMountains, a condition remaining to a great degree

today. To the products of coal burning in the Garfield-Arthur industrial center, reportedly one of the worldslargest at the time, were added the highly acidic sulfur-oxide gas emissions of ore processing. These gaseskilled off soil-retaining lichens and low-lying grassesand forbs, almost completely on the landscape of thenorthern several square miles of the OquirrhMountains. Acidic, phytotoxic air emissionseffectively caused topsoil to be removed by erosionover the years. While it is true that forbs and grasseshave been recovering since Kennecotts SmelterModernization, and that rocky remnant soils are lessacidic than they were several decades ago, forests and

overall vegetation assemblages do not resemble theirpre-settlement, pre-mining condition except in isolatedpockets, primarily south of the Bingham Mine. A localplant ecologist, in fact, suggests that recovery willmimic the progression one can see in a north-to-southtransect through the high-elevation Oquirrhs, but thatthis process will require hundreds or thousands ofyears, if unassisted by vigorous restoration planting(personal communication, T. Harrison, WestminsterCollege).

As a consequence of Kennecotts bufferacquisitions, adjacent road-building and towndevelopment, one of the most conspicuous effects ofmining in the Oquirrhs has been the severing ofwildlife migratory pathways for all except largeungulates, the charismatic macrofauna of wildlifeecology. Even the large populations of deer, elk andthe top-predator cougar are restricted to the areaswithin the fences, which are moving rapidly everuphill. Migratory raptors, including many hawkspecies and the bald and golden eagles, frequent bothfarm fields and adjacent open properties on and offKennecott property. Neotropical songbirds exist inrelatively large numbers and variety in some seasons,mostly in the high country. Amphibians, however,such as the long-extirpated Western Spotted Frog, havewould have no access to proximate, interconnected

waterholes, were they to find themselves on thislandscape today. It is a partially-recovered wildlifepreserve, constrained by lack of water and winterrange, and by the incomplete nature of vegetationrecovery. (Ref. Ecological Risk Assessment NorthernOquirrh Mountains, KUC 1996; Blanchard 1973, An

Ecologic and Systematic Study of the Birds of the

Oquirrh Mountains, Utah.).

Great Salt Lake: The Great Salt Lake is the terminalbasin remnant of ancient Lake Bonneville. Hyper-saline, the lake supports an abbreviated, but extremelyproductive, food web, culminating in the passagethrough twice per year of five million or more

migratory shorebirds and waterfowl of at least 250identified species. Several million of these migratorybirds, which are protected by international treaty, arefound in greater numbers on the Great Salt Lake than atany other site in the world. The Great Salt Lake is nowrecognized as part of the Western HemisphereShorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN), and isgenerally recognized to be among the world'sgreataquatic environments for birds --- though not yetrecognized under the voluntary Ramsar Treaty,primarily for lack of application for that status.

The Lakes biological significance, productivityand vulnerability are, together, the single most

conspicuous attribute set of Great Salt Lake ecologicalgeography. The Lake ecological web consists of aremarkably short trophic system, heavily dependent onfresh-to-saline gradients and dynamics as a terminalbasin. No fish exist in the lake except in a few freshwater inlets. These rare dynamics of the fresh-to-salinegradient, found in only a few terminal basin lakes inthe world, compounded by aerobic-to-anaerobicdynamics in the water column of shallow zones (mostof the Lake), create a menu of environments that arethe essential engine of productive appeal to migratorybirds. Brine shrimp, brine fly larvae and otherinvertebrates in vast numbers feed on the

microbiological wealth of this biogeochemicalbonanza. Birds, in turn, thrive on this invertebratecornucopia. Despite more than a 150 years of humanimpacts --- pollution discharges, minerals extractionand land use encroachment on lake-margin playas andboundary zones --- the Great Salt Lake has continuedto support this enormously significant migratory birdpopulation, a flock shared with all of the Americas,from the Arctic Circle to Patagonia. Great Salt Lakeecosystem vulnerability is becoming manifest in boththe tightening of the urban development noose, on theone hand, and on the other, the approach ofcontaminants of concern, especially bird-jeopardizingselenium, to critical contamination thresholds. Much

hinges on efforts underway in the Utah Division ofWater Quality to establish ecologically responsiblenumerical water quality standards for toxic releases tothe Lake before its too late.

Energy: Throughout all but the last few years (lessthan a decade, depending on the measure), Kennecotthas depended on coal for its energy, with some fewmonths of natural gas use mixed in. Kennecott utilizesits own dual-fuel, 175 MW (megawatt) power plant to

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serve most of its needs, which average around 200MW. The Copperton Concentrator uses in excess of100 MW, and the Mines demand (electric shovels,primarily) are some significant fraction of that. Theelectrolytic processes of refining, the tailings cyclones,

and demand throughout the sprawling complex, makeup the remainder of facility demand. Since the newsmelter became fully operational, co-generation(combined heat and power, or CHP) utilizing wasteheat has produced around 25-30 MW. To cover anyshortfall of internal power production, power ispurchased by long-term contract from the grid, bycontract with PacifiCorp, the regional power utility. Ineffect, Kennecott sells its power to PacifiCorp and buysback the power it needs. Electricity demand is a majorpart of Kennecotts energy picture, a circumstance notlikely to improve while the Pit remains operational,given the extensive pumping that will be required to

move ground water through remediation treatmentprocesses at extreme pressures. If the decision is madeto convert to underground operation, then mining andconcentrating would be dramatically less energyintensive, one assumes from the reduced oreproduction projected.

Envisioning Kennecott as a Sustainable Mine

How can we draw on the guidelines and principles setout by international agencies addressing sustainability, and,most of all, on the principles and methodologies of themining industry concensus, itself, represented by MMSD,ICMM, IDSR? Can useful principles be drawn from theextensive independent work on sustainability? Whatdeficiencies in the composite of these approaches warrantremedy by additions? How can review of the Kennecottcase shed light on sustainable responses to problems andopportunties at Kennecott and in its community andecological context?

Visualization of Kennecott Utah Copper as a minefully integrated into its ecosystem and community at allscales, including that of the entire globe, is dauntinglycomplex. Recalling and applying key elements of theprinciples emphasized by international bodies constituted ofthe major mining companies, including KennecottsLondon parent, Rio Tinto, should shed light on what is

expected on the international sustainable mining stage.Augmented with principles we have uncovered in otherinternationally prominent sustainable development thought,and combined with conceptual approaches of industrialecology, we will now assess the potential for opportunitiesto sustain the mine, to sustain the post-closure economyaround the mine to the benefit of the company and thecommunity, and to sustain contextual and globalecosystems, seeking restoration objectives.

Time is of the Essence; Common Sense is Critical to

Responsiveness: Common sense and honesty areextremely important. We have seen that there are far toomany methodologies, formal criteria, sustainabilityindicators, principles and expectations to be applied

literally. These are the products of a world disinclined toagree on much of anything. To fight through reconciliationof all these approaches would be tantamount to chaos, andwould lose precious time to deal with often time-criticalproblems and opportunities. Remembering therecommendation put forth by several of the theoreticians ofsustainability, which we strongly support --- that tailormade plans, avoiding off-the-shelf approaches, are goingto be most effective --- we are shaping an approach thatresponds to Kennecotts possibilities within the constraintsof ecosystem and community, striving to enhance theprospects of company, environment and community,together.

Equipped with the our preceding review ofenvironmental and community context and history;combining the three-part triage classification suggested in

Breaking New Ground(win-win-win, trade-off or no-go decisions); with Chris Masers Ten Elements ofsustainability; with consciousness of ecologicalvulnerabilities and constraints; and with the creative,entrepreneurial mindset of industrial ecology (economy asnatural system, zero-waste as baseline, BMPs' to achievezero waste/zero emissions, industrial metabolism analyzingenergy and material flows, niche activities complementingco-located or networked industrial systems to diversify andperpetuate the whole, incubator-assisted businessdevelopment), we will illuminate priorities for action.

Some conclusions may cast critical light on decisionsmade so far, without implying blame. We hope,nonetheless, that decisions shown to be less thansustainable might be reconsidered where they either fail tocontribute to sustainability or are recognizably negative intheir effects. Some conclusions will surely support credit tothe company for results, and occasionally for process. Atbottom, we seek to candidly and critically assess thesustainability potential of a mining company in a particularplace, within a particular community, hoping to shed lighton mindset and commitment required at any miningoperation at any other particular place/community nexus.Demographic Context: One factor that shapes Kennecotts

potential as no other is the extent and location of its landholdings, in the context of regional demographic trends andthe events going on around the area. Utah has grownextremely rapidly, and more consistently rapidly thanalmost any other urban area in the US. There are morerapidly growing cities for a decade here, a decade there, butfor prolonged growth rates, few surpass the cities and townsof the Wasatch Front region. Growth is fueled primarily bybirths among this, the populace with the highest fertility

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rate in the nation. Growth in Utah depends little on in-migration or on the boom-and-bust cycles of market-sensitive commodities industries, such as mining. TheWasatch Front has experienced sustained growth of at least30% per decade; recently, the rate has accelerated.

The Utah Governors Office of Planning and BudgetOffice of Demographic and Economic Analysis (GOPBDEA), which provides population data to the officialmetropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), primarily toprovide demographic accuracy to transportationinfrastructure planning, has projected growth into the next50 years according to 13 scenarios, tied to various factors.The median scenarios cluster around a projection ofapproximately five million people living in the WasatchFront/Back area, where there are presently 1.7 millionresidents. (Wasatch Front/Back includes the followingcounties: Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Tooele, Summitand Wasatch, the counties clustered around the Great Salt

Lake and the populous nearby mountain valleys.) Atapproximately 85-87%, Utah is either the second mosturbanized state in the US, or first, depending on the report.(Urbanized means percent of population living in townslarger than 5,000.) Guiding growth toward sustainable landuses, toward integration of adequate, efficient transportationinto land use patterns, and toward exercising leadershipneeded in creating a sustainable regional community, is arole for which Kennecott may be uniquely qualified, and forwhich Kennecott has the power to develop the capacity.Without question, the larger community has grantedKennecott the benefit of the doubt if the company wishes toassume this leadership role.

Kennecotts Resource Opportunities and Obligations:

Low-Hanging Fruit and No-go Constraints

An initial triage review of resource opportunities andchallenges, beyond the narrow process that is the focus ofmining and beneficiation, produces the parts for a toolkitto convert into a sustainable mining system. Through thepurview being constructed here, moreover, it is possible torecognize obvious regional problems, trends towardresource or habitat vulnerabilities, and possible solutions tothose regional problems. This overview will also tell uswhen opportunities emerge to address global problems; or itmay tell us if and when there are critical ecosystems,

communities or resource types of special vulnerability thatmust be respected, or which may be restored in aconcentrated way.

We do not attempt to address the internal workings ofKennecotts mining operations, though we are confidentthat energy savings, shifts from one electrical energy sourceto another (fossil fuels to renewables) and improvements ofefficiencies across the board can contribute greatly to someof the sustainability objectives outlined here. As in any

large industrial facility, management coordination toprevent unfortunate or even damaging errors of projectchoice is a desirable goal. It must be said, however, that thewillingness to experiment that underlies some mistakes isa highly desirable attribute for undertaking sustainability

programs and projects in the zone around the mine --- thefocus of our attention here.Key Issues and Opportunities at Kennecott: Screeningfor the most significant needs and likely opportunitiesreveals the following list:

Global climate change prevention The single mosturgent macro-scale need, requiring action from alllarge energy users, and all who hold opportunities totake action, such as Kennecott and Western miningindustries. Renewable energy resources developmentcan spawn clusters of mutually beneficial businesses,associated by efficiencies of cooperative resourcemanagement and entrepreneurial development, on the

Actualizing Sustainable Mining

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