Which health and safety risk is associated with tailings dams?
If the dam fails, it can cause a methane explosion.
Tailings dams are a common site of rock bursts.
If the dam fails, it can cause a flood of toxic materials.
Tailings dams are a common site of drowning accidents.

Respuesta :

Answer:

If the dam fails, it can cause a flood of toxic materials.

Explanation:

Tailing dams are manmade dam structures that are used to permanently hold slurry from mining processes such as in the refining of ore. The slurry which is a mixture of toxic  elements  is always contained in the dam so it does not contaminate the environment. The site is usually strictly restricted from human access.

If the dam were to fail,  it would cause environmental and health disasters especially among the community in the vicinity of the structure. The slurry would contaminate water sources and ecosystems causing bioaccumulation of heavy metals in organisms and their biomagnification in higher organisms. This would seriously affect the health of the ecosystems, humans included.

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A tailings dam is an artificial structure made for storing the mining byproducts. If the tailings dams fail then the flood of the toxic material will take place.

What are tailings dams and their purposes?

Tailing dams are man-made structures that are built for the storage of chemicals and byproducts like water and other waste products formed while mining.  It is generally for storing the mining wastes.

The byproducts or the waste of the minings are called tailings and their release in the environment is toxic and hazardous as, they can pollute the land, water and air of the surroundings resulting in bioaccumulation and biomagnification in the area.

Therefore, option c. if the tailings dam fails they would flood the toxic waste in the environment.

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