Tailings to Treasure: Evaluating Mine Waste for Metals, Cost, and Cleanup

An old mine-waste pile may hold gold or silver. It may also carry contaminated water, uncertain rights, unstable ground, and long obligations. Tailings to Treasure shows how to tell tailings from waste rock, read historical mill records, ask for a representative assay, and follow the gap between contained metal and a payable product.

A fictional Willow Creek case joins recovery tests to transport, water, residual waste, monitoring, and closure costs—and produces a shortfall despite promising metal figures. The final go/no-go dossier helps readers decide what evidence is missing before funding another study.

• Tell tailings from waste rock and ask whether a sample represents the pile.
• Carry contained-metal figures through testing, recovery, transport, water, and closure costs.
• Study the fictional Willow Creek case, where promising assays still end in a shortfall.

Make the go/no-go decision with the full obligation in view.

See what is inside

The revised edition covers these chapters and reader resources:

• 1. The Pile Is a Record, Not a Grade
• 2. The Record Before the Sample
• 3. Rights and the Safe Boundary
• 4. A Sample That Means Something
• 5. From Assay to Recoverable Metal
• 6. Process Choices and Residual Waste
• 7. The Full Cost Sheet
• 8. Water, Dust, and Long-Lived Obligations
• 9. People and Public Decisions
• 10. The Go/No-Go Dossier
• Mine-Waste Decision Record