I worked in the field of Environmental Engineering for 10 years .. 5 years for AMEC. My big concern with the Tailings issue is that to me is that it reflects a poor relationship with the Government regulators of Peru.

Whom ever the Environmental manager at San Juan is .. that person should know, and have a relationship with the regulators. They attend the same conferences and so forth.

The way this came about (lack of a permit or understanding of such) seems quite out of order to me. If the company was "skating on thin ice" in relation to the tailings pond this issue would not just pop up out of thin air.

There were "dropped balls", here. .. both on the part of Management for not having better relations with the Peruvian Govt .. and on the part of the Environmental manager for not having better relations with the regulators in not understanding compliance requirement from the regulators perspective.

You do not just read the regs and hope that what you are doing passes. You should be in constant contact with the regulators (questioning the meaning of stated regs, and getting feedback on any new laws or regulations that are drafted).