2012 – Page 159 – Republic of Mining

CIDA funds seen to be subsidizing mining firms – by Daniel LeBlanc (Globe and Mail – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

OTTAWA— The Harper government weathered a storm when it cut funding to long-standing foreign-aid groups, but is now facing more controversy over its decision to launch development projects in partnership with mining firms.

The Canadian International Development Agency has established three foreign-aid pilot projects in Africa and South America with large mining corporations, as part of a plan to ensure that foreign aid also fuels economic growth and international trade at home.

Critics argue that Canada is needlessly subsidizing the foreign operations of profitable corporations, but the government is encouraging non-governmental organizations to come up with more projects with the private sector.

Gold miner supports OMA’s high school video competition with a fresh initiative

March 25, 2012January 30, 2012

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario Mining Association member St Andrew Goldfields (SAS) has taken a fresh approach to help promote the So You Think You Know Mining high school video competition. The gold producer has spread the word through internal communications and on-line social media offering high school aged children of its employees an opportunity to win extra cash prizes by entering a video on the benefits of mining.

Any video produced by children of SAS employees will be entered into a random draw for a $500 prize. Students are requested to show proof of entry in the SYTYKM competition and submit a copy of their video to the company by March 31, 2012. The deadline for the fourth annual SYTYKM competition itself is March 15, 2012.

In the true spirit of SYTYKM, SAS is employing video and a social media platform that is popular with young people to support the OMA’s high school video competition. You can see a promotional video on YouTube featuring Geoff Ramey, Human Resources Director at SAS. You can also check out the OMA’s YouTube channel, which is used to support SYTYKM and to share messages in these videos with a wider audience.

Attawapiskat: Lots of love, and rocks, for a young generation [PDAC Mining Matters] – by Jim Coyle (Toronto Star – January 30, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 30, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT. — At Micheline Okimaw’s White Wolf Inn, the most popular of the two motels in this remote James Bay reserve, visitors to town tend to cross paths. And in recent days, in Okimaw’s cozy confines, folks arrived trying to help the community with both its future and its past.

From the organization Mining Matters, a travelling “school of rock” in the person of Toronto teachers Barbara Green Parker, Janice Williams and Jenni Piette, came a high-energy presentation on earth sciences and how that field could lead to jobs for young people in projects like a nearby diamond mine.

From Angela Lafontaine, a member of the Moose Cree First Nation, survivor of her own difficult past, came help addressing long-standing wounds that have gone unhealed down generations and helped sabotage aboriginal aspirations.

For the Cree of Attawapiskat, each of those aims — hopeful futures, reconciled pain — is as necessary as the other.

Alberta Cree official admits dilemma over Gateway as Edmonton hearings begin – by Trish Audette (National Post – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Edmonton — The lead community-industry liaison for the Enoch Cree First Nation finds herself in a “bind” when it comes to the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

“We were known as the caretakers of the land . . . if you’re going to take something from the land, give something back,” Leigh Ann Ward said Tuesday at hearings of National the Energy Board-Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel in Edmonton. “There is a need for (the pipeline), but what are the environmental impacts?”

At the same time, Ward is interested in the economic benefits of the proposed pipeline, which would carry Alberta bitumen to port in Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded aboard Asia-bound tankers.

“We want it to go ahead because this will ensure employment for our band members,” she said, noting as many as 24 members are already trained to work on pipeline construction. “The benefits are really, really high.”

Scrutinizing Canada’s pipeline to Beijing – by Terry Glavin (National Post – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Canada is at the brink of a radical shift in energy and foreign policy. But there has been no debate of any consequence about it — not in the House of Commons, not in the Senate, not in the proceedings of a Royal Commission. Certainly not in the news media.

Here’s what you’ve been missing.

Ostensibly, it’s about the Enbridge project, a plan to pump condensate eastward from the coast to Alberta so that Alberta bitumen can be made fluid enough to be pumped back to the coast at Kitimat — then put into oil tankers to be sent down Douglas Channel and out into the roaring North Pacific, eventually landing in California and Asia.

As recently as last fall, John Bruk, the founding president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and as fervent a booster of trade with China as you’ll meet, was cheering Stephen Harper and wishing him all the best with his trade engagements in the Forbidden City.

NEWS RELEASE: VALE MINE EMPLOYEE FATALLY INJURED

January 30, 2012

SUDBURY, January 29, 2012 – Vale regretfully announces that an employee was fatally injured this afternoon while working underground in the main ore body at the 4215-foot level of the company’s Coleman Mine in Levack due to what appears to be some displacement of material from a development heading. The employee was found and brought to surface, where he was subsequently pronounced dead by medical authorities.

The immediate family has been notified, however, the name of the employee is being withheld pending completion of the notification process.

The employee was 47 years old and had 16 years experience working with the Company.

“We are saddened and devastated by the loss of this employee,” said Kelly Strong, Vice President Mining & Milling (North Atlantic Operations) and General Manager, Ontario Operations.

Vale worker at Coleman Mine killed Sunday – UPDATED (Sudbury Star – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Vale has confirmed that an employee was killed Sunday by falling rock at Coleman Mine.

“Vale regretfully announces that an employee was fatally injured this afternoon while working underground in the main ore body at the 4215-foot level of the company’s Coleman Mine in Levack due to what appears to be some displacement of material from a development heading,” the company said in a release.

“The employee was found and brought to surface, where he was subsequently pronounced dead by medical authorities.” Vale said the immediate family has been notified, but the name of the employee is being withheld pending completion of the notification process.

The employee was 47 and had 16 years with the company.

Sweeten the deal for mining companies in Ring of Fire: Bisson – by By Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper

NDP seeks support from Liberals

The New Democrats are suggesting the province use a carrot instead of a stick to convince chromite mining companies operating in the Ring of Fire to do all their processing in Ontario.

The NDP will ask the government to cover infrastructure costs as an incentive. “The Ontario government has got to respond by providing infrastructure to the site, namely hydro and transportation, which are critical to making it work,” said MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay).

Bisson is working with other member of the NDP caucus to put together an incentive package which they intend to pitch to the governing Liberal Party within the next couple of weeks.

The package would include an offer to develop transportation to the site in the form of railway or roads, as well as offer an industrial energy rate in the form of about four cents or less per kilowatt hour.

Tories, Liberals clash over Ring of Fire – Star Staff (Sudbury Star – January 28, 2012)

January 29, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Cliffs Natural Resources said Friday it still plans to open a chromite mine and plant by 2015, despite claims by a Conser vative MPP that development of the so-called Ring of Fire area has been pushed back to 2016.

“There has been no changes for the Ring of Fire chromite project timeline established by Cliffs,” said Patricia Persico, a Cliffs Natural Resources spokeswoman, when contacted by The Star.

Earlier Friday, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli accused the McGuinty government of mismanaging the Ring of Fire, a huge, mineral-rich tract of land in Northern Ontario.

Fedeli said development of the Ring of fire has been delayed to 2016 from 2015, and he blamed the provincial government and its Ring of Fire coordinator, Christine Kaszycki.

[Sudbury new union hall] A brand new home – by Carol Mulligan (January 28, 2012)

January 29, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Like a play that is a well-acted opening night after a chaotic dress rehearsal, there was no sign Thursday of the behind-the-scenes scrambling that went on this week at the new Steelworkers’ Hall at 66 Brady St.

By the time the ribbon was cut to the new Leo W. Gerard Hall, the multi-purpose union hall was ready for visitors.

There was no sign of the rolls of wire, lumber, sawdust and workers evident Monday when United Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand led a brief tour of the new facility. By Thursday afternoon, the main hall was transformed into an elegant ballroom — with a

musical trio playing on the main stage, a buffet of finger foods and an atmosphere reminiscent of a wedding or tiny social event.

Descendant of Jack London opposes [Northwest Territory] mine – by By Stephen Hume (Vancouver Sun – January 28, 2012)

January 28, 2012

The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.

Aboriginal opposition to development of silver-zinc deposit in Nahanni National Park Reserve is supported by writer’s great-granddaughter

Celebrated writer Jack London’s great-granddaughter is supporting northern first nations and environmental groups challenging efforts by a Vancouver mining company to redevelop a rich silver-zinc deposit within the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

The park, surrounding the South Nahanni River where it carves through the Mackenzie Mountains about 1,300 kilometres north of Vancouver, has been called Canada’s Grand Canyon.

Last December, the Dehcho First Nations wrote to the federal government saying that a decision by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board dismissing the need for an environmental impact review for the Canadian Zinc Corp.’s Prairie Creek mine was “troubling and disappointing” in its failure to adequately address their concerns about downstream water quality.

[India] Odisha CM urges Centre to complete ban chromite export with immediate effect – (Orissa Business News – January 26, 2012)

January 28, 2012

This article originaly came from India media: http://www.orissadiary.com/ Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has demanded a complete ban on its exports with immediate effect. In a letter to Union Minister of Mines Dinsha Patel, the Chief Minister on Wednesday urged him to stop chrome ore export in order to provide raw material security to …

For people of Attawapiskat, hope endures – by Jim Coyle (Toronto Star – January 27, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 28, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT.—For more than 20 years, Gilles Bisson has been visiting Attawapiskat, often flying his own small plane up to this remote Cree reserve. As much as any outsider can, he knows all the people, all the issues. Being a smart guy, he also knows how much he doesn’t know.

“Sometimes,” sighs the veteran New Democrat MPP for Timmins-James Bay. “I wonder if I really understand the community any better now than when I started.”

Attawapiskat is basically built on swamp, about 300 kilometres north of Moosonee on the James Bay coast. And the imagery fits. Lately, as the reserve became the new Canadian shorthand for native need, dysfunction and failure, its problems have seemed just as boggy and intractable.

The community is, to be sure, everything it has been portrayed as and more — a world of chronic poverty and dependence, of babies having far too many babies, of cascading generations piling up in shanties, of disheartening self-sabotage, of nepotism and decidedly imperfect governance.

Cleaning up California’s Wild West: EPA takes on polluted mercury mine in San Benito ghost town – by Paul Rogers (San Jose Mercury News – December 4, 2011)

January 28, 2012

This article originally came from the San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/

Every second of every day it flows: a river of poison gushing from the hillsides.

Forty gallons a minute, 21 million gallons a year. It bubbles and gurgles across the landscape, a bright orange toxic brew, nearly as corrosive as battery acid, teeming with mercury, aluminum, iron and nickel, the legacy of a long-abandoned mine, relentlessly pouring into nearby streams.

For 120 years, the mining town of New Idria in the rugged back country of southern San Benito County was a colorful California outpost, a Wild West community frequented by prospectors and speculators, stagecoaches and famous bandits like Joaquin Murrieta, known as the “Mexican Robin Hood.” Herbert Hoover even owned part of the claim at one point.

Today, after decades of neglect, this remote landscape with so much history may finally have a future.