Assessment of tailings management facility

The materials left over after separating the valuable from the uneconomic part of phosphate rock are cumulatively knows as ‘tailings’. The phosphogypsum stack at the island of Gråen (Gipsön, Sweden) was established in the 1970s as  a tailings management facility for the nearby phosphoric acid production plant owned by Hydro Agri (now YARA AB). After the plant closed down in the 1990s, monitoring of the site continued for two decades. In order to assess future environmental protection measures for the site, YARA AB needed  detailed information on the current status of the tailing facility. We helped them do this by conducting an in-depth site assessment, including sampling as well as hydrological and hydrogeochemical modelling.