{"id":137196,"date":"2024-02-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=137196"},"modified":"2024-02-26T16:19:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T22:19:45","slug":"university-of-mississippi-joins-national-cohort-of-universities-studying-disaster-readiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/university-of-mississippi-joins-national-cohort-of-universities-studying-disaster-readiness\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Mississippi Joins National Cohort of Universities Studying Disaster Readiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Geological engineering professor to provide guidance on mine waste monitoring, safety<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A University of Mississippi<\/strong> professor has begun studying the impact of mining waste structures as part of a national initiative to improve disaster readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department of Commerce<\/strong>‘s\u00a0National Institute of Standards and Technology<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0National Science Foundation<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0have awarded more than $7 million in grants to support natural hazard preparedness to 15 universities across the nation, including Ole Miss<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each university will tackle an aspect of disaster readiness, from how to build structures that can survive storm wave impacts to creating damage prediction models for earthquakes, fires and floods.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Disaster Resilience Research Grant<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0allotted nearly $400,000 to Thomas Oommen<\/strong>, UM chair and professor of geology and geological engineering, and Sidike Paheding<\/strong>, assistant professor of computer science at Fairfield University<\/strong>, to study mine tailing impoundments, massive structures that store mining waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With the increased interest in green energy and battery technology, the need for critical minerals and mining is increasing,” Oommen said. “That means mine tailings are going to be more and more prevalent, but\u00a0monitoring\u00a0these\u00a0dams\u00a0is a challenge.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining operations leave behind massive amounts of slurry, or solid waste, that is stored behind dams constructed of the same waste material, Oommen said. While some of the materials are harmless \u2013 such as rock, sediment and other debris \u2013 others are toxic, including\u00a0arsenic, lead, uranium, and other compounds.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When these dams fail, a flood of waste has been known to reach more than 6 miles from the dam site, Oommen said. A dam in Brumadinho, Brazil<\/strong>, failed in 2019,\u00a0sending a wall of waste and mud into a small town more than half a mile away, killing more than 240 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mine tailings dams are really large geotechnical, earthen structures, and they’re prone to failure with extreme weather events,” Oommen said. “The consequences of failure can be catastrophic both in terms of casualties and environmental effects.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar failures have happened in Mississippi<\/strong>. In 2005, a\u00a0phosphate mine tailings dam failure<\/a>\u00a0allowed more than 17 million gallons of acidic liquid to pour into surrounding marshland, killing vegetation near Bangs Lake<\/strong> in Jackson County<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\u00a012,563 mines are active<\/a>\u00a0across the United States<\/strong>, but there is no rough count of how many mine tailings dams exist. When mines shut down, oversight of the impoundments often becomes lax, Oommen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The challenge is when the mining operation is happening, there is a lot of interest in the dam and its upkeep, but once the operation is done and there is no more revenue being generated, the companies are gone,” he said. “So, who is going to\u00a0maintain\u00a0this? Often, it becomes no one’s property or it falls into the hands of the government to\u00a0maintain\u00a0it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So, maintaining and monitoring these tailings dams is a challenge, especially if you have to do it manually, using traditional methods.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oommen and Paheding’s research will use satellite and environmental data to detect whether a dam is at risk of failure. They will also use historical weather records to determine what correlation, if any, there is between hazardous weather and dam failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need to prevent environmental damage, especially if there are residents living in nearby areas,” Paheding said. “Our goal is to provide a technological solution to prevent these incidents.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using satellite imagery and environmental data, Paheding and Oommen hope to develop an advanced machine learning model that can\u00a0identify\u00a0potential issues, Paheding said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If successful, the technology would allow remote monitoring of mine tailing impoundments and help predict when a dam is becoming unstable, Oommen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“From my perspective, I hope we can have a sophisticated algorithm that can be utilized to solve this problem,” Paheding said. “We don’t want have something that works in theory; we want to have something applicable in a real-world scenario.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 2414588<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Clara Turnage<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Kennecott tailings dam near Salt Lake City failed in 1941, 1964 and 1998. In a project funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Thomas Oommen, UM chair and professor of geology and geological engineering, and Sidike Paheding, assistant professor of computer science at Fairfield University, are using satellite imagery and environmental data to develop ways to assess the integrity and safety of mine tailing impoundments to avert such disasters. Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Thomas Oommen. Photo by Thomas Graning\/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geological engineering professor to provide guidance on mine waste monitoring, safety A University of Mississippi professor has begun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":137199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[27993,27992,27991,18348,5,27989,17181,7067,4,27990,25676,27988,655],"class_list":["post-137196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-bangs-lake","tag-brumadinho","tag-fairfield-university","tag-jackson-county","tag-mississippi","tag-national-institute-of-standards-and-technology","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-sidike-paheding","tag-thomas-oommen","tag-u-s-department-of-commerce","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CTG_2042-AN-750.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137202,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137196\/revisions\/137202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}