Peter Lighthall Snippet A

Geotechnical engineer Peter Lighthall recalls the 2014 failure of the Mount Polly tailings dam in British Columbia, which released over 12 million cubic metres of water and tailings into a creek and, eventually, into pristine Quesnel Lake. This major upset for the mining industry triggered a review of all tailings dams in British Columbia – which "greatly increased the amount of available work for independent reviewers like me". The next year, in Brazil, a tailings dam failure released 40 million cubic metres of tailings that travelled 600 km down a river to the ocean, wiping out communities and destroying the environment.