Invited Speakers

Michael Davies

From the Ground Up - Building Better Waste Rock Stockpiles/Dumps to Minimise Generation of ARD/AMD

Michael has more than 35 years of experience with managing mine waste and tailings. This experience is across North and South America, Australia, Africa, Asia, Russia and Europe. He has split his career between consulting and mine owners. Most recently, he joined Teck Resources as Vice-President, Environment and is now in a phased retirement where he is currently a Senior Advisor. He is also currently the Board Chair for INAP. He has written or contributed to over 100 publications/chapters on mine waste management including key industry guidelines used worldwide. He is an Adjunct Professor of Mining at the University of British Columbia and lectures at the graduate and undergraduate level on mine waste issues.

Aidan Davy

ICMM's Policies and Guidance: Supporting the Responsible Management of ARD

Aidan Davy joined ICMM in June 2007. As COO, he is responsible for strategy development and implementation and lead the work to develop ICMM’s Mining Principles, which define good practice environmental, social and governance requirements for the mining and metals industry. He also leads ICMM's work on environmental issues, including the management of issues relating to biodiversity, climate change, mine closure, tailings and water. Prior to assuming the role of COO in 2015, Aidan led ICMM's work on social and economic development, investor engagement and sustainability reporting.
Aidan has 35 years of cross-sectoral experience on sustainable development issues, working with a range of private, multi-lateral and not-for-profit organizations, including the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation in Washington DC. For the first decade of his career, Aidan primarily worked on environmental issues, within an international consulting company, a multinational manufacturing company and at the World Bank. He then shifted his focus to social responsibility and accountability issues, with a strong emphasis on the extractive industries for almost two decades. As COO, he is connected into all of ICMM's work on environmental matters, social responsibility, governance and innovation.

Kim Ferguson

Economic benefits of pro-active management to reduce future larger costs that could otherwise be incurred

Kim Ferguson is the Practice Lead Global Closure in the BHP Resource Centre of Excellence. Kim is also the current Co-Chair of the International Council of Mines and Metals (ICMM) Closure Working Group. Kim has over 20 years’ experience in resources projects throughout Australia and internationally, including West Africa and South America, ranging from greenfields exploration through operations to closure planning and implementation and post-closure monitoring. She has experience in a range of commodities including gold, copper, iron ore, silver, lead / zinc, coal and petroleum. Kim has held operational, corporate, project and consulting roles covering environmental and social impact assessment and approvals, resource closure planning and execution, stakeholder engagement, sustainability and environmental management as well as auditing and acquisition and divestment roles. Kim is passionate about mining being a responsible industry that plays a key role in a more sustainable future for us all.

Mark Logsdon

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say: Determining the Period-of-Performance for Managing Reactive Sulfide-bearing Mine Wastes

Mark Logsdon is a geochemist with 50 years of experience in geology, hydrogeology, and environmental chemistry related to mining and mine-waste management. His work experience includes teaching, mining-exploration geochemistry, government service, research, and consulting. Since 1984, Mr. Logsdon has been in private consulting, focused on mining issues, particularly (a) acidic and metalliferous drainage; (b) water-quality conditions in natural and mined ground, including surface and ground-waters; (c) planning for and executing mining exploration, development, operations, closures, and remediation / restoration. Such assessments typically involve not only geochemistry, but also the underlying geology and mineralogy and the relationships of hydrogeology, mining and site-engineering practices and costs. Mr. Logsdon has worked on more than 250 mining projects, mines across the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Eire, France, Portugal, Russian, Spain, Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Australia, Laos, Mongolia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines.

Devin Castendyk

Are we there yet? A roadmap to improve the accuracy of pit lake predictions

Dr. Castendyk is a Senior Geochemist at WSP in Denver, Colorado with 24 years of experience researching the geochemistry, limnology, and closure of mine pit lakes. He has studied over 45 pit lakes on four continents, co-edited the book, Mine Pit Lakes: Characteristics, Predictive Modeling, and Sustainability, developed the INAP Pit Lakes Database, and pioneered pit lake sampling methods using aerial drones.

Bob Kleinmann

The changing roles of active, passive, and semi-passive water treatment technologies

Dr. Bob Kleinmann is best known for his innovative contributions in at-source control of acid rock drainage (ARD) and his pioneering role in the development of passive treatment of mine water. Bob is now semi-retired, but continues to serve as editor-in-chief of the international journal, Mine Water and the Environment.

Paul Brown

Paul is a Chief Geochemist within Rio Tinto. He has over 35 years of experience and more than 25 in the mining industry. He has been with Rio Tinto for 16 years and has focused on all aspects of mineral waste and water management including acid and metalliferous drainage. For the effective management of mineral wastes, he has worked across the whole mine life cycle, from projects through to closure. He also provides technical direction in the area of heap leaching. Previously he has acted as a consultant to mining companies, state authorities and government agencies, both nationally and internationally, on various aspects of mineral waste management. He is the current Chair of the International Network for Acid Prevention (INAP).

Lisa Kirk

Microbes in Mining – Applications in Source Control and Mitigation of ARD

Dr. Lisa Kirk is Principal Biogeochemist and CEO of Enviromin, Inc., a consultancy specializing in the geomicrobiology and environmental geochemistry of mine waste and mine-affected water. She has more than 35 years of experience in mining biogeochemistry, including the development and implementation of custom laboratory test methods for assessment of metal mobility/attenuation and acid generation potential. Dr. Kirk has expertise in the biogeochemistry and design of in situ waste and water treatment bioreactors, with particular focus on management of nitrate, selenium, arsenic, nickel and sulfur. She is experienced in the assessment, fate and transport, and management of acid rock drainage, as well as geochemical modeling of rock-water interactions and prediction of post-mine pit lake water chemistry. She has served as an Affiliate Professor in the Montana State University Chemical and Biological Engineering Department since 2016.

Ward Wilson

Producing Geochemical and Physical Stability in Mine Waste Deposits-The Big Picture: Case Studies in Commingling Part 1

G. Ward Wilson, PhD, PEng, PGeol, FCAE, FEIC, is a Professor of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and the NSERC/COSIA Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Oil Sands Tailings Geotechnique. He brings over 30 years of industrial experience to his practice in advanced mine waste management and unsaturated soil mechanics. He has served as a specialist advisor to several large international mining projects, such as the well-known Acid Rock Drainage Risk Review completed by Rio Tinto, and was a member of the Expert Panel tasked with the assessment of the technical causes of the rupture of Dam I in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He served as the lead author responsible for the chapter on Prevention and Mitigation in the Global Acid Rock Drainage Guide prepared for the International Network for Acid Prevention and contributed two chapters to the Guidelines for Mine Waste Dump and Stockpile Design (CSIRO Publishing). Further, Dr. Wilson is a co-principal investigator and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the NSERC Strategic Network Grant (Toward Environmentally Responsible Resource Extraction Network, TERRE-NET). TERRE-NET unites leading Canadian academic researchers with partners from the public and private sector, First Nations and Inuit communities, and international experts to address complex technical and socioeconomic concerns related to responsible resource extraction, including mine-waste management and mine-site reclamation.

David Blowes

Review: Reactive transport simulation for mine wastes

David Blowes is a Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Groundwater remediation. He is the Scientific Director of the NSERC-TERRE-NET research network focused on Environmentally Responsible Resource Extraction.

David Wilson

David Wilson is a Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo. His research focus is the use of reactive transport models for characterization and forecasting of the geochemical evolution of waste rock and mill tailings.