The Cobre Panama Mine is a large open-pit copper development project in Panama. It is located 120 kilometres west of Panama City and 20 kilometres from the Caribbean Sea coast, in the district of Donoso, Colon province, in the Republic of Panama. As part of the development a coal fired power plant is under construction. The Paco power plant is 320 MW and will provide energy for the Cobre Panamá mine. The ash from the power plant will be stored in an engineered landfill constructed within an existing rock quarry 800mtrs from the site.
The lined ash basin is constructed in a rock quarry with non-contact (below liner) and contact (above liner) water collection systems. The existing vertical quarry wall face was not suitable to install a lining system directly onto it. Several subgrade preparation methods had been investigated and rejected for various reasons such as safety, suitable material availability or cost. FLI France suggested to install the vertical lining system in 3 or 4 meter lifts such as done in domestic waste landfills of a similar nature