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Mining Environmental, Water Shortage and Land Reclamation/Revegetation Issues

Taking down Vale stacks in Copper Cliff will be slow and not exciting to watch – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – September 7, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

But it will be expensive — perhaps as much as $100 million by 2030, top executive says, as they must be taken down almost brick by brick

Sudbury’s tallest structure is slated to come down, and when it does the moment will be bittersweet not only for residents and workers but even the mining brass who have concluded it can no longer stand. The Superstack “has been with the city for more than 50 years, and there are emotional attachments to landmarks,” acknowledged Gord Gilpin, head of Ontario base metals with Vale.

“It’s internationally recognized with Sudbury, with the company, and with the mining industry.” Many older residents recall when the 1,250-foot cloud-tickler was erected and “we have our own stories of the history behind it,” said Gilpin.

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Reclaiming the future: Innovative paths for post-mining prosperity – by Chih-Ting Lo (Canadian Mining Journal – June 26, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The mining and metals sector ranked lowest in the 2021 Globe-Scan report of attitudes toward all major sectors in 31 countries. Some U.K. universities have banned mining companies from recruiting on campus, and the number of geology and mining engineering graduates continues to slide.

Much of the issue stems from some newsworthy poor historical performance, including the sector’s impact on land, air, water, and biodiversity, as well as a perceived inability to prepare communities to thrive after operations close.

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Ten million trees really made a difference to Sudbury’s landscape – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – June 8, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

And about half those trees came from seedlings grown by Vale and its greenhouse in Copper Cliff

More than 10 million trees have been planted as part of Greater Sudbury’s regreening efforts, and Vale (formerly Inco) is responsible for nearly half of those seedlings. They started out tinier than a thumbnail, but 50 years later, the first trees that were planted are now soaring into the sky, covered in needles or leaves, and providing shade, nourishment and homes to all kinds of critters.

About five million of those seedlings got their start at the Vale greenhouse in Copper Cliff. A large group, including children from the nearby elementary school, gathered at the greenhouse on Thursday to celebrate its 50th birthday.

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Former Canadian uranium mine site returned to province (World Nuclear News – May 3, 2024)

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/

The project, which is some 75 km south of Lake Athabasca and 15 km east of the border with the Province of Alberta, operated from 1979 to 2002, producing more than 62 million pounds U3O8 (23,848 tU) from two underground mines and four open pit mines.

The operation also included a tailings management facility, a mill and other support facilities. The Cluff Lake Project is located on Treaty 8 territory, the Homeland of the Métis, and is within the traditional territories of the Dene, Cree, and Métis people. Cluff Lake was fully decommissioned in 2013.

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British Columbia funds new extraction technology – by Staff (Mining.com – March 20, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

The British Columbia government has invested C$850,000 ($630,000) from the province’s Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund in cleantech startup pH7 Technologies.

The funds will be used to support a pilot project to process 5,000 kg per day of raw materials into approximately 2,500 kg of extracted platinum group metals per year.

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Regreening Sudbury: VETAC at 50 – work still to be done – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – October 25, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

‘I am really quite amazed by what has happened when you spread some limestone’

Growing up in Sudbury many of us — as teens — roamed across a countryside made barren, blackened and rocky due to years of mining and smelting operations. The more recent generations, however, would have to go looking for examples that remain of that time.Revegetation programs have residents and visitors once again seeing a rolling verdant landscape.

“I am really quite amazed by what has happened when you spread some limestone,” said Peter Beckett, Laurentian University professor emeritus of reclamation, restoration and wetland ecology, and chair of the VETAC regreening advisory panel. “Like magic. Who would have thought?”

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Restoration: Harnessing technology to improve revegetation outcomes – by Jenny Fortier (Canadian Mining Journal – June 1, 2023)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

By 2030, it will be necessary to revegetate at least one billion hectares of land worldwide to reach the United Nation’s sustainable development goals. Canada has set an ambitious goal to conserve and revegetate 30% of the country’s land mass by 2030. As global leaders in sustainable resource development, the Canadian mining sector has a unique opportunity to contribute to these shared goals.

The goal of revegetation is to recreate a functional and diverse ecosystem that resembles the original pre-industrial conditions as closely as possible. Plant communities can be established through sowing seed, planting seedlings, or allowing the area to be recolonized slowly over time.

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Sudbury’s regreening expertise taking root in Peru (Northern Ontario Business – March 17, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

City of Greater Sudbury signs letter of intent with Peruvian region to promote innovation and cooperation

Sudbury’s environmental remediation expertise is being exported to Peru. The City of Greater Sudbury and the regional government of Moquegua, two international mining centres, have signed a letter of intent of cooperation during the recent PDAC mining show in Toronto earlier this month.

According to a city news release, this alliance letter recently signed is a formal relationship builder between the Nickel City and this region of Peru with the intention that it will mutually “stimulate economic development, workforce development, battery and microchips development, research and remediation technology, and curricula transfer, helping people and businesses on both sides of the Americas thrive.”

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Workers Are Dying in the EV Industry’s ‘Tainted’ City – by Peter Yeung (Wired Magazine – February 28, 2023)

https://www.wired.com/

In Indonesia, sickness and pollution plague a sprawling factory complex that supplies the world with crucial battery materials.

AFTER DAYBREAK, THE village of Labota begins to shudder with the roar of motorbikes. Thousands of riders in canary yellow helmets and dust-stained workwear pack its ramshackle, pothole-ridden main road, in places six or seven lanes wide, as it runs along the coast of Indonesia’s Banda Sea. The mass of traffic crawls toward the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, better known as IMIP, the world’s epicenter for nickel production.

“This is a tainted city,” says Sarida, a woman in her forties buying cough medicine at a roadside pharmacy. Only her eyes are visible; the rest wrapped in a face mask, hijab, and burqa. Behind her, a factory belches out brown plumes as thick as a skyscraper.

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Nature Reclaimed bookmark campaign celebrates Sudbury’s regreening success – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – February 10, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

New bookmark campaign shows off species that have returned to Greater Sudbury and are thriving as a result of world-renowned regreening program

The red maple is as iconic to Canadians as a neighbourhood hockey game. While the forests surrounding Greater Sudbury support a comparatively sparse population of red maple trees, the handsome hardwood is being celebrated on one of the city’s recent Nature Reclaimed bookmarks.

“Essentially, they highlight the idea that we’ve been able to reclaim nature. In other words, it’s coming back,” Stephen Monet, the city’s manager of strategic and environmental planning, told The Star.

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‘We need to restore the land’: as coal mines close, here’s a community blueprint to sustain the Hunter Valley – by Kimberley Crofts and Liam Phelan (The Conversation – February 7, 2023)

https://theconversation.com/

The decline of the coal industry means 17 mines in the New South Wales Hunter Valley will close over the next two decades. More than 130,000 hectares of mining land — nearly two-thirds of the valley floor between Broke and Muswellbrook — will become available for new uses.

Restoring and reusing this land could contribute billions of dollars to the Hunter economy, create thousands of full-time jobs and make the region a world leader in industries such as renewable energy and regenerative agriculture that improves soil and water quality and increases biodiversity and resilience. But to unlock these future opportunities, we must first clean up the legacy of the past.

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From mine site to pollinators paradise – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – November 7, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Jenny Fortier and Northern Wildflowers plying their expertise to help regenerate mine sites

Jenny Fortier’s booth at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference got a lot of double takes last June.Nestled in amongst the technology experts and equipment manufacturers at the Toronto mining tradeshow, Fortier’s display stood out for its distinctly un-mining-like look and messaging.

A butterfly landing on a purple coneflower, with the company name, Northern Wildflowers, emblazoned across its promotional banner, doesn’t exactly scream “mining.”

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Jane Goodall to help celebrate Sudbury’s 10-millionth tree – by Tyler Clarke (Sudbury.com – July 6, 2022)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The public is invited to attend a celebration at Bell Park on Thursday afternoon, at which the 10-millionth tree in the city’s 44-year regreening effort will be planted and world-renowned scientist Jane Goodall will be in attendance

In what Mayor Brian Bigger considers a “historic moment” for Greater Sudbury, the community has been invited to celebrate the planting of the 10-millionth tree at Bell Park on Thursday.

World-renowned scientist Jane Goodall will be joining the 3 p.m. celebration at the William Bell Gazebo to film a segment for the upcoming IMAX film, “Reasons for Hope.” The city’s regreening effort under which these 10 million trees have been planted since 1978 certainly qualifies as a reason for hope, Bigger told Sudbury.com.

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Tapping mineral wealth in mining waste could offset damage from new green economy mines – by Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Kamini Bhowany, Kristy Guerin, Laura Jackson and Partha Narayan Mishra (The Conversation – May 30, 2022)

https://theconversation.com/

To go green, the world will need vast quantities of critical minerals such as manganese, lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements. But to some environmentalists, mining to save the planet is a hard pill to swallow if it leads to damage to pristine areas.

The good news is that in many cases, the mining for these minerals has already been done. After Australia’s major miners dig up iron ore, billions of tonnes of earth and rock are left over. Hidden in these rock piles and tailing dams are minerals vital to high tech industries of today and tomorrow.

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Chile sues BHP, Albemarle, Antofagasta over water use – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 8, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

The Chilean government of ecologist and feminist President Gabriel Boric is suing mines operated by giants BHP (ASX: BHP), Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and Antofagasta (LON: ANTO) alleged environmental damage caused in the northern Salar de Atacama salt flats, the world’s driest place on earth.

The State Defense Council’s (CDE) legal action singles out BHP’s Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, Antofagasta and Barrick’s 50-50 Zaldívar operation and Albemarle’s lithium assets.

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