Clint McCullough (MiWER), Mark Lund (MiWER)     Can Australian pit lakes be used for sustainable enduses for mining companies, communities or the environment?   Being a finite abstraction, “sustainable mining” is something of an oxymoron for what is inherently unsustainable activity. Nevertheless, in an era of increasing recognition of environmental and social damage through an ever-growing scale of mining coupled with increasing corporate social conscience for these activities, the mining industry usually works to reduce operational risk and retain its “social licence to mine” the community resource through a variety of strategies. Figure: Conceptual beneficial end uses for pit lakes…

Clint McCullough (MiWER), Douglas Hunt (Curtin University), Louis Evans (Curtin University) What planning and regulatory involvement if required to develop pit lakes into beneficial end uses? Social licence to mine is encouraging a much greater emphasis on sustainability and contribution to the local community of a post-mining landscape than ever before. Development of a pit lake resource into a beneficial end use depends upon input from the mining company involved, the local community and also relevant regulatory agencies. Planning must ideally occur before the first hole is dug, and from then on it should be regularly updated as economic and social…