Responsible management of cyanide solutions and tailings on gold processing plants worldwide is an important aspect to these operations and is regulated via guidelines provided by the International Cyanide Management Code, an industry initiative designed to minimise cyanide risk to operators and the environment. Here we demonstrate the unprecedented causal relationships surrounding the saline (>14 000 mg/L total dissolved solids - TDS) and hypersaline (>50 000 mg/L TDS) cyanide solutions in gold plant tailings in the Central Goldfields of Western Australia, resulting in zero wildlife mortalities on three sites over the study period of almost one year._x000D_
Wildlife interaction and ingestion is significantly lower than that experienced at other gold mine sites, with more rapid degradation of weak-acid dissociable (WAD) cyanide within the tailings storage facility (TSF). A rigorous chemical sampling using a novel minimal access' robotic sampler device and wildlife observation exercise was carried out at two hypersaline mine sites: Barrick Kanowna Belle (BKB) and Gold Fields St Ives (GSI) and one saline site, Barrick Granny Smith (BGS). The data was compared with available reported chemical sampling and wildlife observation data from a previously operational fresh water site (<2000 mg l tds) that had experienced wildlife mortalities, case study d (csd). the comprehensive body of work, along with cyanide degradation test work carried out in the laboratory, was analysed via hypothesis development and testing, causation analysis and dynamic chemical modelling. the non-mortality effect on these sites appears to hold over a further four years of routine wildlife and cyanide monitoring by site personnel. this study has helped these three mine sites achieve and maintain full compliance cyanide code status over a significant period while removing the need for operating the detoxification plants they would otherwise have required.citation:adams, m d, donato, d b, schulz, r s, smith, g b, gibbons, t, davies, s and hillier, d, 2013. hypersaline-induced reduction in cyanide ecotoxicity at gold operations, thereby obviating detoxification plants, in proceedings world gold 2013, pp 489-502 (the australasian institute of mining and metallurgy: melbourne).>