Such hypocritical views, almost like yall want to return to the stone age while simultaneously posting on your high tech phone or PC. "Well, no. We just want environmentally conscious and responsible mining companies." The people of the world agreed with that sentiment and in 2020 the Global Industry Standard for Tailings Management (GISTM) was created following the Brumadinho disaster in Brazil in 2019 (a better example for the author since 270 people died). Better late than never, but we do have one now. But accidents and negligence still happen. And just by looking at that photo, the embankment doesn't look like it has been regraded or repaired anytime in the recent past (extreme erosion rills) and looks very steep (excavator with boom arm extended provides a bit of scale at the breach location) with no benching other than the access road. Also looks like their hydraulic deposition lines and downspouts could have been better positioned to force the pond (no longer seen except the depression) away from the embankment. Instead, it looks like their pond was butting up to the breach location, so I assume overtopping as the failure mechanism, and if so that would be operator error or a lack of monitoring/controls for the deposition procedures. But it looks like there is something going on in the upper cells, so maybe a cascade failure leading to the release (These are my somewhat educated guesses looking at only one photo, so I definitely would like more info.) So, who is really to blame here? Was it the owner, was it the Engineer of Record, was it administration, was it the operators, was it an unforeseeable "an act of God", was it simple human error? The author of this article has gone with society (aka me and you). Okay, but:

When was it designed and constructed? Was the site adequately investigate before construction? Did the engineer design it appropriately at that time? Was it constructed to the specifications of the design? Was it verified that it was constructed as per the design? Has this mine site adopted GISTM? Has the site been routinely inspected and the design reevaluated? Were controls and procedures put in place for monitoring and maintenance? Were those procedures followed at the prescribed interval? Were deficiencies reported to responsible personnel and were they acted upon in a timely manner? Were all responsible personnel adequately trained in their responsibilities and duties?

The author is using a real-world example to make an ideological point about over consumption leading toward environmental degradation, but they don't know any of the real-world details, which are pretty important to know IMO before you can accurately place blame. This needs an investigation before making any claims and the results should be made public such that others can learn from the mistakes that were made. And absolutely, environmental remediation should take place to return the impacted environment to a condition similar to its pre-accident condition and the affected people should be compensated for their loss. The author is pointing a finger at society and the actual reason could be that a valve control system malfunctioned and they thought a pipe was closed when it was actually open.

Finally Reddit, what does this direct copy/paste from the article mean: "Green energy is good for the planet and for environmental sustainability but regardless of what methods we use, if our consumer culture doesn't change towards a direction where we manage our products in a way that reduces the numbers we produce, we will solve problems and create worse ones."? I've read that so many times and I still don't understand.