Predicting and Managing Acid Rock Draining in Mining.

Doctor. Andy Robertson

Dr. Andy Robertson is a rock mechanics engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa). Early in his career he was the research officer for De Beers Consolidated Mines in South Africa and Chief Engineer for Frankipile (S.A.) Ltd. also in South Africa. In 1973, he was a founding partner of Steffen, Robertson and Kirsten (SRK) which incorporated Robertson Info-Data Inc. in 1990 as a subsidiary of SRK. In 1994, SRK's holdings in Info-Data were sold to the Info-Data shareholders and Andy left SRK to form Robertson GeoConsultants Inc. (RGC) where he has continued his geotechnical and environmental engineering consulting practice.

He has been directly responsible for a wide range of mining, geotechnical and environmental engineering projects for the mining industry and government clients, including site investigations and foundation design, rock mechanics and soil slope stability for open pit mines; design of a wide variety of tailings impoundments; waste dump investigations and designs, including acid rock drainage (ARD) evaluations, control and mine closure plan development. He has worked on projects all over the world, including Canada, the USA, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Irian Jaya, Australia, South Africa, Mali and Zambia.

He has served on a number of Boards of Review, Advisory Panels, and as the Chairman of the Board of Studies for the Geological Engineering Program at the University of British Columbia (Associate Professor Status). He has given a number of courses on acid mine drainage control, mine closure and mining geotechnics to government (US EPA) and industry institutions.

Over the years, he has received a number of awards in the mining industry including: The R.M. Hardy Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society, an Excellence Award from the Consulting Engineers Council of Colorado, an Honor Award from the American Consulting Engineers Council, a Merit Award for his contribution to the Mine Environmental Neutral Drainage (MEND) Program, and an Environmental Engineering Design Award from the Association of Professional Engineers of British Columbia.

Shannon Shaw MSc

Shannon Shaw graduated from Queen's University in Chemistry and Geology in 1994. She then went on to complete her Master's degree at the University of British Columbia in Geological Sciences. She joined Robertson GeoConsultants Inc. (RGC) in 1996 where she has been responsible for the management and interpretation of geochemical testing programs including sampling, mineralogical characterization, interpretation of various geochemical laboratory test results, geochemical computer speciation modeling and ARD control technology development. Part of her duties with RGC includes the maintenance and technical updating of the EnviroMine website which is sponsored by RGC.