Jones, PL & Franklin, C 2019, 'Relinquishment criteria verification: quality assurance/quality control using unmanned aerial vehicles', in AB Fourie & M Tibbett (eds), Mine Closure 2019: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Mine Closure, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 1461-1476, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_rep/1915_114_Jones
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/1915_114_Jones/)
Abstract: Leigh Creek Coalfield is located approximately 550 km north of Adelaide, in an arid area of South Australia. It was formerly operated by the state-owned Electricity Trust and has over 70 years of open cut mining history. The coal was hauled 250 km south by rail to fuel the Port Augusta Power Stations, once producing up to 40% of South Australia’s electricity demand. The mine, currently under Flinders Power control, was leased in 2000, and coal mining operations ceased in November 2015 due to the closure of the Port Augusta Power Stations. A swift decision to close the mine, with partially built landforms and legacy issues from early mining practices, created rehabilitation challenges. The mine closure plan identified the major risks as spontaneous combustion of the in-pit and surface waste dumps, public safety and surface water control. A comprehensive mine closure plan and set of relinquishment criteria were developed and agreed with the regulator. The challenge was to demonstrate to the regulator the successful completion and achievement of the relinquishment criteria.
Procedural control, timely data capture, effective quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) and independent verification, are critical components in demonstrating completion of mine closure relinquishment criteria. However, these components are not necessarily second nature to mining operators.
The Leigh Creek closure team developed an innovative solution, the Inspection Test Plan (ITP), utilising state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology it captures all the critical components in one package. Presented in the paper is the Leigh Creek ITP, the operational implementation of the ITP, and how the ITP was successfully employed to achieve verification of the mine closure relinquishment criteria at Leigh Creek.
Key components of the ITP include:
Some operational statistics from the successfully completed Leigh Creek mine rehabilitation project include:

Keywords: relinquishment, verification, quality control, unmanned aerial vehicle, rehabilitation