Lake Superior Mining News

While not the vindication Kennecott wanted, a company-funded report released on the danger of Kennecott’s massive 5,700 acre tailings impoundment, north of Magna, Utah, says the tailings dam may fail, but will not destroy residential areas, as originally thought.

In October, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the tailings dam could fail in a major earthquake and move across State Road 201 – like a “violent and intense” flash flood - reaching more than twice the distance Kennecott predicted.

“Really, the public-safety concern is the highway,” said Troy Meyer, lead engineer for Colorado-based Tetra Tech, the engineering firm conducting the safety evaluation.

According to Tetra Tech, Kennecott’s tailings impoundment is still far from meeting Utah’s minimum safety standards and the company’s goal of meeting those requirements in 2018 is likely optimistic.

In March 2008, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Kennecott Utah Copper had concealed, since 1988, the potential for a major earthquake-caused tailings disaster in Magna.  In 1992, the company conducted a “risk assessment” to determine if full containment of the impoundment would be more expensive than legal costs associated with property damage and citizen deaths. 

The Tribune published a 1997 confidential memo, written by Ray D. Gardner, former Chief Legal Officer for Kennecott, that is highly critical of the company’s handling of the potential tailings disaster:  “Prior management’s decisions to disregard and conceal legal advice, forego public notice, attempt to establish a residential buffer surreptitiously, collude with the State Engineer to withhold the KL studies from the public, and restrict the distribution of the Reduction Study, collectively and individually, give the appearance of a conspiracy to cover-up a profound threat to public safety.”

During the cover-up, G. Frank Joklik was Kennecott’s president and CEO (1980 to 1993).  Joklik, now a mining consultant, is currently on the board of directors for Prime Meridian Resources (PMR), a mining firm seeking to develop several metallic mineral deposits in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

To read more about what Joklik and Kennecott did to cover up the tailings dam threat, go to the Lake Superior Mining News‘ coverage of the scandal:  Kennecott Hides Potential for Deadly Tailings Disaster

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 5:25 am and is filed under copper, Kennecott-Rio Tinto, Prime Meridian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.