See below, Alison McQuillan’s review of the two BOHOGS meetings from earlier this year…
“The first QLD BOHOGS meeting of 2015 was hosted by Ensham on March 11. Attendance was in excess of 20 (crows included geotechs and suppliers) which was great to see.
Attendees were provided an overview of Ensham operations by Ensham Senior Geologist Travis Heaps, followed by presentations by Jordan Wilson (of BMA) on Geotechnical Stand-off’s WRT rockfall hazards and Alex Duran (of PSM) on Prism Monitoring practices. John Latilla (of AMC Consultants) then provoked some discussion with his Downgrading of Lab Results to Rock Mass Strength presentation after which a call for the formation of a taskforce to further debate and refine current practices was put out to the crowd.
Following lunch, all attendees were then provided a tour of Ensham’s open cut operations, including the pit which was infamously inundated with water from the Nogoa River in 2008. A quick game of spot the difference saw no dragline practicing its snorkelling technique on this visit.
A few weeks later the BOHOGS banner was flying again at Drayton mine in NSW. Similar to the Ensham meeting, attendees were a mix of geotechnical engineers and suppliers which was again great to see. Cheryl Holz (of AAC) provided an overview of the complex geology of Drayton Mine as well as an introduction into the proposed Drayton South operation. Rachel Clark (also of AAC) then spoke about the Implementation of Mandatory 10m Drop Zones at Drayton Mine. Attendees were then given a lesson in Dealing with Difficult Structure by Adrienna Brown (of Thiess), in which a novel solution to reduce the risk of rockfall on equipment was successfully implemented at Mt Owen Mine. Finally, John Latilla made an appearance in a hologram of sorts to re-generate discussion on the issue of Downgrading Lab Results to appropriate Rock Mass Strengths. NSW BOHOGS members were also called upon to join the taskforce set up after the Ensham meeting. Further details of this taskforce will be posted separately.
After lunch, what has become some sort of a tradition for NSW meetings, the rain clouds dumped their load during the field tour. With a little bit of patience attendees were still able to view two of Drayton’s remaining operating pits with minimal saturation.
Both events were a great success and we look forward to seeing even higher attendance at the next BOHOGS meetings (QLD – 10 June @ Middlemount Mine & NSW – August Liddell Mine). Remember to check out the BOHOGS website on a regular basis for upcoming events.”
