Tailings impoundment reclamation soil cover design at the Ridgeway Mine

A reclamation soil cover needed to be designed for the 300-acre gold tailings impoundment at the Kennecott Ridgeway Mine, located near Ridgeway, South Carolina as a part of closure planning. A methodology combining the use of the SEEP/W and SoilCover models was used to evaluate potential soil cover configurations with respect to infiltration into the underlying tailings. The objective of the reclamation soil cover was to isolate the tailings from the environment and minimize oxygen flux into the tailings. Three different potential soil cover configurations were evaluated for construction at the Ridgeway site. In addition, two different construction methods: slurrying or physical placement of cover materials were evaluated. Based on the combination of the results of the modeling (both SEEP/W and SoilCover), cover constructability, and construction cost, a preferred reclamation soil cover was identified for the tailings impoundment at the Ridgeway Mine.