Tailings pond the size of 200 Pairc Tailteann pitches
The massive Tara Mines tailings pond could hold 200 Pairc Tailteann pitches on its sprawling 255 hectare site.
The waste facility for the mine is almost quarter the size of Navan and the dam surrounding it varies in height from 18 to 28 metres in height.
During normal operations the mine produces approximately 2.1 megatonnes of tailings or waste annually.
A portion of the tailings produced is mixed with cement and used to refill (“backfill”) mined-out areas to support the surrounding rock within the mine. The remainder is discharged to the huge Tailings Pond at Randalstown, which is located approximately 3km to the north of the mine site facility.
The tailings pond has been constructed over several decades, the first one back in the 1970s. It has been developed in six main stages during the period from 1974 to 2022.
Residents living in the area are well aware of the extent of the waste facility, but say it is astonishing how little the people of Navan know about the tailings pond or how large it is.
The facility covers half of the townland of Randalstown and also encroaches on Simonstown. In recent years, Boliden Tara Mines has bought up an adjacent 500 acres of adjacent lands in Sillogue, which local residents say will be used as an extension to the tailings facility in the event of the Tara Deep ore body proving viable.
The original tailings pond was developed alongside the new mine which began production in 1977. Early extensions to the facility constructed in the 1980s were lateral extensions to the original waste dump.
In 2010 the company was granted planning permission by Meath County Council for a four-metre high vertical extension to the tailings pond.
The way was cleared for work to begin on this when residents of Simonstown Lane, who had previously indicated their opposition to the extension, said they would not be appealing on the understanding that this would be the last extension to the tailings pond.
However in 2017, An Bord Pleanala granted permission for yet another extension - this time a lateral expansion that covered an area of 58 hectares and which would provide a storage volume of approximately 9.6 million cubic metres of mine tailings (13.6 million tonnes).