Process Water Management and Seepage Control in Tailings Storage Facilities: Engineered Environmental Solutions Applied in Chile and Peru

In the past thirty years many mining projects in Chile and Peru have used: (i) polymeric geomembranes (ii) design-and-build cutoff trenches, plastic concrete slurry walls, grout curtain systems to control seepage at tailings storage facilities (TSFs). Geosynthetics are a viable alternative TSF dam for clay cores or impermeable materials, mainly because of their marked advantages cost, installation, construction time. This article describes use geosynthetics liners trench–plastic walls–grout dams mining, with objective decrease environment, considering different material cases such as: cycloned sand dams, borrow mine waste rock dams. Finally, this discusses aspects geosynthetic technology acceptance local regulatory frameworks, lessons learned, advances. It focuses on implementation TSFs Peru, which some highest world, as well wet dry extreme topography, severe seismic conditions. These conditions constitute challenge manufacturers, engineers, contractors, who must achieve optimal technical solutions, while being environmentally aware economic.