Care and Maintenance

The state a mine enters when production stops but abandonment has not been accepted: the workings are kept pumped, ventilated and safe, and the shafts kept open, against the possibility of restarting. It is a holding position, and an expensive one.

Historical usage

The phrase belongs to 20th-century and modern mining rather than to the Victorian vocabulary, and in Britain it is bound up with the long decline of metal mining and coal. Its meaning is clearest in the mines that did not get it: Geevor stopped producing in 1990 and went to care and maintenance, but the pumps were switched off in May 1991 and the workings flooded; South Crofty closed in 1998 and flooded too, and reversing that has since required a water treatment plant, active dewatering from 2023 and the pumping and treating of some eight million cubic metres of water, with production not expected before the late 2020s.

How it worked

A mine on care and maintenance keeps a skeleton crew doing the work that stops the mine destroying itself: pumping to hold the water level, ventilating so the workings remain enterable, inspecting shafts, headgear and ground support, and maintaining idle machinery, tailings dams and water treatment. Nothing is produced. The cost is carried in the expectation that the metal price, or the owner's finances, will change.

Why it was used

Because reopening a maintained mine is a different proposition from reopening a flooded one. Water is the decisive factor: once pumping stops, the workings fill, timber and steel corrode, and the cost of getting back in rises by orders of magnitude — which is why care and maintenance is the difference between a pause and, in practice, an ending.

Risks & limitations

It only works while someone pays for it, and the companies that put mines on care and maintenance are often the ones least able to keep doing so. The pumps going off is rarely a neutral event either: at Wheal Jane the pumps were stopped after closure in 1991 and the following year an adit near the surface gave way, discharging tens of millions of litres of acidic mine water into the Carnon River and the Fal estuary.

Regional variation

A universal industry status rather than a regional practice, but in a British context it is most associated with Cornwall's last tin mines and with late 20th-century collieries, where 'on care and maintenance' was frequently the formula used publicly for a closure that everyone involved expected to be permanent.

Related terminology

Inrush, Shaft, Shaft Capping, Subsidence

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

• Geevor Tin Mine — Cornwall (well documented example)
  Geevor went to care and maintenance on closing in 1990; the pumps were switched off in May 1991 and the workings flooded.
• Milldam Mine — Derbyshire (well documented example)
  Milldam has twice been held on care and maintenance rather than abandoned — for much of the 1999-2012 consent period, and again since production ceased in October 2023.
• South Crofty — Cornwall (well documented example)
  South Crofty closed and flooded in 1998; dewatering it again from 2023 has required a water treatment plant and the pumping of millions of cubic metres.
• Wheal Jane — Cornwall (well documented example)
  The pumps were stopped after closure, and the 1992 discharge followed.

Disasters associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis, with the nature of the relationship stated — not every disaster where this term might plausibly apply.

• Wheal Jane acid mine water discharge, 1992 (direct cause)
  The discharge followed the cessation of pumping after closure — the failure mode care and maintenance exists to prevent.

Sources

1. (primary) Victory Shaft — Geevor Tin Mine Museum
2. (secondary) Care and maintenance — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) Cornish Metals starts dewatering UK tin mine — Mining.com

Record created: 25 August 2026 · Last researched: 25 August 2026