Monthly Archives: September 2022

As of September 2022, 65 mining companies are now engaged in IRMA representing 76 sites:

• 56 sites are self-assessing under the IRMA Standard, the first step before an independent audit;
• 9 are piloting the draft IRMA exploration (IRMA Ready) or mineral processing standard self-assessments
• 11 independent audits under way: nine initial audits (South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Argentina) and two surveillance audits (Mexico, Zimbabwe)
• 2 independent audit reports have been released — Anglo American’s Unki mine in Zimbabwe, and Carrizal’s Zimapán mine in Mexico
• They encompass 25 countries:
  1. Argentina
  2. Australia
  3. Brazil
  4. Canada
  5. Chile
  6. Colombia
  7. Dominican Rep.
  8. Finland
  9. France
  10. Indonesia
  11. Liberia
  12. Mexico
  13. Mozambique
  14. Namibia
  15. New Caledonia
  16. Panama
  17. Philippines
  18. Russia
  19. South Africa
  20. Spain
  21. Sri Lanka
  22. Turkey
  23. Ukraine
  24. United States
  25. Zimbabwe
• And 52 minerals and mineral types:
  1. Aggregates
  2. Barite
  3. Bauxite
  4. Cerium
  5. Chromite
  6. Chromium
  7. Coal (metallurgical)
  8. Cobalt
  9. Copper
  10. Diamonds
  11. Europium
  12. Feldspar
  13. Gadolinium
  14. Gold
  15. Graphite
  16. Iridium
  17. Iron
  18. Kyanite
  19. Lanthanum
  20. Lead
  21. Limestone
  22. Lithium
  23. Magnesium
  24. Mica
  25. Mineral sands
  26. Molybdenum
  27. Monazite sand
  28. Neodymium
  29. Nickel
  30. Osmium
  31. Palladium
  32. Praseodymium
  33. Platinum
  34. Potash
  35. Quartz
  36. Rare earth elements
  37. Rhodium
  38. Ruthenium
  39. Samarium
  40. Sand
  41. Selenium
  42. Silver
  43. Staurolite
  44. Sulphur
  45. Talc
  46. Tellurium
  47. Titanium
  48. Tourmaline
  49. Vanadium
  50. Xenotime
  51. Zinc
  52. Zircon

(Note: this blog appeared in the Sep 22, 2022 IRMA newsletter)

On September 11 in South Africa about 500km southwest of Johannesburg, the tailings dam failed at the Jagersfontein mine waste impoundment. Three people were killed, four more are still missing, and 40 were hospitalized.

This is a tragedy, and all the more so because it was predictable.

IRMA Board member Meshack Mbangula of Mining Affected Communities United in Action and other MACUA leaders are currently in the region, gathering the perspectives of communities. Meshack shares that some are still without water, electricity, sewage management, and with road blockages limiting children’s access to school.

From the world’s repeated recent experience with mine waste disasters, we know that poor tailings facility designs, aging facilities, and increasing frequency of extreme weather associated with climate change will combine to cause more mine waste tragedies around the world for communities living near mining operations.

We can act to minimize that threat. We join with others asking three questions:

1. How can we prevent the construction of new mining waste facilities with this type of risk to fail?
2. How can we provide sufficient funds for communities and governments to protect public safety from these mine waste risks even when mine ownership changes?
3. The unbelievably difficult question of how to put protection of human life first at the thousands of places around the world where these dams already exist?

The disaster, and reports of years of community effort to raise concern and attention to the risks, shows the importance of ongoing community involvement in addressing a mine’s impacts – for as long as the mine’s impacts exist.

IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining seeks to address these issues in not only our chapter on waste management, but also chapters on emergency preparedness and response, protecting water resources, stakeholder engagement, and reclamation, closure and financial assurance.  Learning from this experience will inform the update of how diverse stakeholders together define “best practices” in the IRMA Standard, due out in 2023.