The Mine Closure Legacy Changemaker - Raina Hattingh

Raina Hattingh, Mine Closure and Asset Transition Manager, says, “A passion for improving post-mining landscapes for future generations gives me the energy to tackle challenges. I’m fuelled by rewarding project outcomes, and client and team interactions.” This is what she had to say about her career, and the challenges and opportunities for mine closure.

How did you become a closure practitioner?

Since her earliest engagement with the mining sector, Raina has never lost her enthusiasm and drive to foster positive change in the industry.

After graduating with a degree in zoology, Raina’s first role was working for a public research institute, where she interviewed global mining industry leads on effective measures for tailings rehabilitation and long-term management. This ignited her passion for mine closure planning.

Since then, Raina has worked with global clients across commodities and supported delivery of site-wide environmental impact assessments, rehabilitation implementation strategies, post-mining land uses and closure plans, and cost estimates. She has also assisted South African, Namibian and Saudi Arabian regulators develop and refine closure-related legislation, and contributes to various training to upskill emerging professionals.

“Each day I get the opportunity to help rectify legacies left behind from 100+ years of mining, and to support current operators integrate the lessons we have learnt over time so that they can be Future Ready,” she says. “This is what makes each day exciting – contributing to my life goal of ‘saving the world’!”

Mine closure is a multi- and inter-disciplinary process that should be integrated throughout the entire life of an asset. How are you and your team helping clients to develop and implement environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically feasible plans for closure and transition?

“As the number of global operations approaching closure accelerates, understanding the requirements of being ‘ready to close’ is gaining momentum,” says Raina.

She explains that many tier-one mining operators start considering closure readiness approximately 10 years from planned site decommissioning. This requires consolidation of the site’s closure knowledge base and assessment of its associated maturity to support informed decision-making, the studies required to address knowledge gaps, and the estimation of costs associated with the current level of closure understanding. This knowledge base comprises all aspects of mine closure, including: 

• legal obligations, public commitments and stakeholder expectations

• interactions between the post-closure landforms, surface water catchment integrity and groundwater recharge

• geotechnical and erosional stability of remaining landforms

• geochemical stability of residual voids pit lakes

• potential source-pathway-receptor management

• post-mining land use options.

“Our mine closure team   includes key closure integrators (planners and engineers) who work with our clients to define a site’s current level of closure knowledge maturity, identify gaps and help to develop solutions and designs to improve quantification of current closure costs. 

“These closure integrators are supported by multiple internal subject matter experts across a plethora of disciplines – including approvals specialists, hydrogeologists, hydrologists, environmental and social scientists, mine waste and landform design engineers, and contaminated land specialists.”

Raina argues that this does not imply that a mine should focus its closure planning purely on stakeholder views, opinions and needs. Instead, it encourages ongoing, transparent integration of these views into the planning process, throughout the mine’s life.

“As mutual trust and respectful relationships take years to form, initiating these discussions 10 years prior to site closure is often too late, and can result in a protracted delay of a site being able to apply for closure certification.

“It is often only once these relationships are formed that stakeholders will more confidently share their views and be willing to assess, identify and support other viable alternatives, if needed. Hence, time needs to be spent as early as possible to accurately define relevant stakeholders who could have a vested interest in a site’s closure. Then, an active and ongoing program of engagement can be continued.”

Find out more about our mine closure capabilities

WSP offers services for our clients that encompass the entire mining lifecycle – from planning through to execution of closure works. This requires technical subject matter expert input for planning and design to develop and refine the closure knowledge base, supported by effective study management. The acquisition of Calibre – known for their closure execution experience – has strengthened WSP’s closure planning offering. We now offer combined strengths and capabilities to partner with clients across major closure readiness and closure execution projects.

If you would like a trusted advisor to support you harness value from the transitioning of your mining landscape, contact Raina Hattingh.