BHP Arizona legacy assets environmental management system

BHP
Arizona, USA
  • Mine environmental & social
  • Mine technical services
  • Mine water management
  • Environmental management, permitting & compliance

Challenge

BHP has nine legacy mine sites located throughout the state of Arizona. These legacy assets include open pit and underground copper operations, mine waste storage facilities (tailings and waste rock), heap leaching facilities, and supporting material development sites (aggregate) including associated infrastructure such as plant sites, power infrastructure, and water supply.

Solution

SLR staff have been supporting these sites by monitoring environmental permitting and compliance, the establishment and operation of an EQuIS database, the development of data management protocols such as SAPs, SOPS, QAPPs, and the development and roll out of electronic data collection processes for field personnel and laboratories.

Our role:

  • Set up and management of a comprehensive EQuIS database, including scheduling (SPM), data quality screening (DQM), and custom reporting.
  • Development and management of electronic data collection (Collect) forms and laboratory data
  • Development of custom web-hosted dashboards to present data and statistics spatially and tabularly, and allow for the uploading and downloading of data from the database
  • Regulatory reporting for groundwater and stormwater
  • Data validation including meteorological data, groundwater, surface water, and soils
  • Field staff support

Highlights

  • Nearly 500 sampling locations including groundwater, surface water, stormwater, and soils across 9 sites
  • Regulatory reporting for state permits including stormwater and groundwater
  • Successful establishment of EQuIS within 9 months including nearly 50 years of historical data migration
  • Migration to Collect forms and “live” electronic data delivery of field data within 9 months
  • Multiple custom reports have been developed and integrated into EQuIS and presented spatially via web-hosted dashboards
  • Works closely with BHP, Earthsoft and multiple third-party consultants to identify and develop efficiencies within the EMS
  • SLR has worked closely with Earthsoft to develop efficiencies and improvements to the database and data collection and reporting process

Impact

SLR has and continues to support BHP with their comprehensive environmental monitoring program and is focused on the highest level of data quality and efficiencies related to data collection, validation, and reporting.