‘Failure resides in the design’: Mount Polley Review Panel – Mining.com

January 30, 2015

Mount Polley’s tailing dam failed because of design failures, wrote the government appointed panel that released its findings today.

The panel said that “. . . there was no evidence that the failure was due to human intervention or overtopping of the perimeter embankments and that piping and cracking, which is often the cause of the failure of earth dams, was not the cause of the breach.”

Rather it was design failures that were the main cause:

The breach of the Perimeter Embankment on August 4, 2014 was caused by shear failure of dam foundation materials when the loading imposed by the dam exceeded the capacity of these materials to sustain it. The failure occurred rapidly and without precursors.