text: Usually called RTD – Riverine Tailings Disposal. In most environments, not a particularly environmentally sound practice, it has seen significant utilisation in the past, leading to such spectacular environmental damage as done by the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company in Tasmania to the King River, or the poisoning from the Panguna mine on Bougainville Island, which led to large-scale civil unrest on the island, and the eventual permanent closing of the mine.
  As of 2005, only three mines operated by international companies continued to use river disposal: The Ok Tedi mine, the Grasberg mine and the Porgera mine, all on New Guinea. This method is used in these cases due to seismic activity and landslide dangers which make other disposal methods impractical and dangerous.