With 2025 officially underway, the New South Wales Resources Regulator has a new set of compliance priorities in its sights for the state’s mines.
Over the next six months, the Regulator will turn its attention to increasing safety compliance across a range of key areas, the most pressing of which will include risk management and supervision and tailings dams.
Risk management and supervision
Between May 2023 and May 2024, 31 incidents across open cut and underground mines identified inadequate hazard identification/control or supervision as contributing factors.
In the same period, assessments resulted in 80 notices which referenced supervision or risk management.
Following an initial focus on open cut activities, in 2025 NSW Regulator inspectors will be visiting both coal and metalliferous mines with a focus on risk management and supervision.
The assessments will be made unannounced on backshifts and weekends to include work undertaken outside of production areas and target plant or machine shut-down work.
Tailings dams
Three tailings failures have occurred internationally in the past 12 months to November 2024.
According to the state Regulator, the risk of catastrophic failure is still a credible risk to NSW workers.
“A safe tailings dam is dependent on effective critical controls, maintained to an adequate standard,” the Regulator said.
“As part of the planned inspection activities on tailings storage facilities and emplacement areas, inspectors will review the critical controls that maintain dam wall integrity.”
This will aim to ensure the control verification monitoring and emergency response plans are sufficient to identify signs of early failure and to protect workers on and below dam walls.
Inspectors will be attending tailings dams and emplacement areas focusing on principal hazard management plans, dam break studies, failure mode analysis and monitoring system effectiveness in installation, maintenance and escalation.
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