Open Collections

Integrated hydrogeological and environmental restoration of landslides affecting a large asbestos mine dry tailings dump

Tailings and Mine Waste Conference (2011 : Vancouver, B.C.); University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering

The Balangero asbestos open pit mine, located 35km NW of Torino (Italy), was the largest operation of this kind in Western Europe. The dry tailings were lifted by a conveyor belt from the mill and dumped over a natural slope with an approximate angle of 25 degrees, progressively reaching a maximum thickness estimated at 80 m. Mining operations ended at the beginning of the ‘70s. By the '80s the dump was deeply scarred by various local and large scale instabilities, to the point that houses located at the toe, on the opposite side of the valley, were evacuated. The award winning restoration project used a multidisciplinary approach including hydraulics, geotechnical, pedological and risk engineering to yield a well balanced and sustainable solution. This paper illustrates the Risk Based Decision Making (RBDM) process used through the feasibility, design and construction follow-up of the environmental restoration of the 60 Mm3 dry Balangero asbestos tailings dump. [All papers were considered for technical and language appropriateness by the organizing committee.]

Text

2011-10-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/38489

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/