The ironsand mine at Taharoa on the North Island’s West Coast has been one of the unsung success stories of New Zealand’s export sector for more than five decades.

It provides employment for locals and raw material for steel manufacturing but the sandy environment where ironsand is mined can lead to dust in dry, windy weather.

To make managing dust risk easier, mine owner Taharoa Ironsands Limited enlisted the support of New Zealand agritech company HortPlus to develop a small but mighty innovation.

Trialled in December and now used across the whole 1,350 hectare mine site, new daily dust risk reports provide managers with the information they need to quickly deploy dust control measures when the weather forecast suggests dust drift is more likely.

“The reports provide us with three days’ foresight of what weather and dust conditions may look like,” says Taharoa Ironsands Chief Executive Ian Goodacre.

“It allows us to prepare ahead of time so we are in a better position to respond if conditions are likely to result in more dust. The more we can understand and get ahead of things, the better. If dust is forecast to be over a certain level, we take action before it happens wherever possible.”

Goodacre says the new reports provide information on forecast weather conditions, as well as dust risk, modelled on Taharoa Mine’s specific locality. They provide a “technological edge” and what he describes as a “one stop shop” for him and his team when considering dust risk during their planning sessions each morning.

“This brings us into the future and provides all the information we need in one place.”

Measures available to mitigate dust risk include using watercarts, reducing vehicle speeds around the mine site to cut down on the amount of dust being kicked up, or if dust risk is particularly bad, alerting staff early if operations in a specific area have to be changed or suspended.

“Time is of the essence on a mine site when we need to react, so having an early heads-up is really beneficial.”

Goodacre says the new reports are a huge addition to the automated alerts and levels receives from dust sensors located around the mine site. These alerts are still in place, but the additional reports with forecast dust risk levels allow his team to take a more proactive approach.

Another benefit of the reports is how they assist the mine in meeting some of the resource consent requirements that govern its operations, Goodacre says.

“We are working in a dynamic and ever-changing environment so being able to build an accurate long-term record of dust levels and how they are shifting over time helps us to demonstrate compliance with requirements and track the difference our efforts are making.”

Goodacre says in addition to introducing the new reports and stepping-up its daily dust mitigation measures, Taharoa Ironsands continually remediates and rehabilitates areas around the mine to stabilise and serve as windbreaks, planting 100,000 plants last year as part of those efforts.

HortPlus is best known for its MetWatch digital platform, used by orchardists, scientists and horticulturists to track disease, irrigation, pest and weather trends, forecast future scenarios, and make business- and environment-critical decisions.

The application of the company’s expertise into other aspects of primary industries heralds a new frontier for the Wellington-based business, which boasts a 20-year history of innovation.

“We’ve welcomed the chance to collaborate with the mine to create reports that play a small but important role in improving dust control and environmental management,” says HortPlus Director Mike Barley.

“We’re really excited about where this could lead. Getting good data to the right people at the right time to make the best decisions, opens up a lot of opportunity."

Over time the dust-risk model created for Taharoa Mine will be refined, improving its performance further, he says. A digital interface will also be created, allowing mine managers to log in to see all historic dust data for their site in one easy-to-access location.”

“It’s our hope that this tool may offer potential for improving dust-risk decision-making at other mines too, as well as on major civil construction projects such as motorways, where dust needs to be carefully managed for the benefit of the environment and community, as well as resource consent compliance.”

---

New daily dust risk reports provide mine managers with critical insights to proactively mitigate dust issues.