Hail Creek Mine weathers the storm

There’s an old saying ‘make hay while the sun shines’ and last year Hail Creek Mine did just that, improving infrastructure during the drier months in readiness for the wet season.

Last year, the operation declared force majeure after heavy rains dumped more than 3000 megalitres of water into the pits.

At the maximum rate of 60 megalitres per day, it took three months to dewater the active mine area, highlighting the need for new infrastructure to handle extreme weather events.

Hail Creek Mine general manager operations Andrew Woodley said a new strategy was implemented in November 2008 to prepare the mine for the upcoming wet season.

“For our first four years of operation, Hail Creek Mine operated under very dry conditions where we desperately needed more water,” Andrew said.

“It was certainly a complete turnaround when the 2008 floods occurred. Because we’d operated in water-saving mode for so long we didn’t have the pumps needed to dispose of all the water.”

Andrew said the first priority was to ensure that in the event of another flood, Hail Creek Mine was able to pump water out of the pits within 30 days of a rain event equivalent to 2008.

“The new $2.5 million infrastructure; a network of pipes and pumps in most pits, allows us to distribute water from these pits to any of our water storage areas onsite,” Andrew said.

“As it turned out we actually had more rain this year than we did in the floods of 2008, although not all in one hit. It was pleasing to see the new system operated smoothly and made a large difference in reducing operating delays following heavy rainfall events. Our next improvement frontier must be to further improve our pit roads,” Andrew said.

Since implementing the new pumping strategy, Hail Creek’s Mining and Environment teams have worked closely to ensure that any water captured in the pits is responsibly managed.