An industrial sand producer historically disposed of its fine tailings by slurrying them to old mine pits, but over time, the pits’ capacity for tailings disposal became unsustainable. Around the same time, one of its tailings basin dams failed due to uncontrolled seepage.
Barr was hired to provide emergency response for the dam failure and to evaluate alternative tailings-management approaches. We conducted an alternatives analysis, and the use of dry-stack tailings was identified as the preferred alternative to slurry tailings. Barr designed the filter plant to dewater the tailings and improve stability of tailings, providing all civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering and design; process flow diagrams; and civil and mechanical layouts for bidding and construction.