Tailings Storage Facility Inspections After Brumadinho: What Changed

On 25 January 2019, the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam at Vale's Brumadinho mine in Brazil collapsed catastrophically. A wave of tailings travelled downstream, killing 270 people. The dam was an upstream-raise structure that had been declared safe by external auditors months earlier.

The investor and regulatory response was swift. The Church of England Pensions Board and the Principles for Responsible Investment led a coalition demanding global standards on tailings management. By August 2020, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) had been published by the ICMM, UNEP, and PRI.

GISTM did not invent tailings inspection, it codified expectations that had been considered best practice. Independent Tailings Review Boards (ITRBs) became standard. Engineers of Record (EoRs) were given more clearly defined duties. Disclosure of tailings facility inventory became an investor expectation rather than a regulatory afterthought.

ICMM members committed to GISTM conformance for "extreme" and "very high" consequence facilities by August 2023, and for all other facilities by August 2025. Whether or not your operation is an ICMM member, the inspection and documentation expectations of GISTM have become the global benchmark.