After copper has been removed from the ore at the Bingham Canyon Mine, the tailings are transported 14 miles as a slurry in a 60″ concrete pipe to Kennecott’s tailings impoundment located near Magna, Utah. Tailings are processed through two cyclone stations that separate the coarse grained material (underflow) from the finer grained material (overflow). The underflow is used to construct the outer embankment of the impoundment and the overflow is deposited into the interior of the impoundment where the solids drop out forming a beach and the water pools in a pond in the center of the impoundment. To accommodate the approximately 60 million tons of tailings deposited annually, the impoundment height is raised approximately 8-10 feet per year.  The impoundment has been receiving tailings since 1906. Since then, more than 1.5 billion tons of tailings have been stored.

Location: Magna, UTAH