Mining Environmental, Water Shortage and Land Reclamation/Revegetation Issues – Page 11

Commentary: Tapped resources – Water use and its impact on mining in Canada – by Karen MacMillan and Khaled Abdel-Barr (Northern Miner – January 19, 2016)

January 20, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

Scrutiny of water-use policies and regulations, and concern that provincial governments across Canada need to better regulate industrial water use, have become more prominent in recent years, particularly after the recent droughts in B.C. and Alberta.

This increased scrutiny of the impacts of mining operations on surface and groundwater could have broad implications for mining and energy projects, including curtailing project development through the refusal to issue or renew water licences on terms that make mining projects feasible.

A recent example includes a Northwest Territories mining project where the regulator has warned the project proponent that it could lose one of its water licences for failure to comply with requirements for spring water sampling. Other examples from the energy sector should also be considered highly relevant to Canada’s miners.

Australia’s Small Mining Towns Are Running Out of Water – by James Paton (Bloomberg News – January 18, 2016)

January 19, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The Australian mining town of Broken Hill is preparing for a future that doesn’t depend on silver and zinc, but there’s one resource it won’t be able to live without: water.

The prospect of that commodity running out has sparked concern in the remote community more than 1,110 kilometers (680 miles) west of Sydney. The city of 19,000 people exhausted its supply of water that can be treated conventionally, forcing it this month to turn on a desalination plant to process the salty remains. Water flowing into the Menindee Lakes, the city’s key source, is at a record low amid an El Nino-induced drought.

Broken Hill’s plight underscores the vulnerability of Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, and the investment needed to secure water for Outback communities.

Turning Sudbury’s regreening expertise into actual green – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – January 08, 2016)

January 11, 2016

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Protocol under development aims to turn local environmental knowledge into marketable product

Sudbury’s environmental destruction and subsequent reclamation is one of the city’s defining moments. From a blackened, barren nickel capital to a beacon of regreening and responsible mining around the world, Sudbury has come a long way since the 1970s.

A major project is germinating between the mayor’s office and Laurentian University that would capitalize on the expertise built from the recovery process.

Laurentian’s vice-president of research, Rui Wang, had introduced the Sudbury Protocol at the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation’s (GSDC) first Resourceful City talk in November.

World’s Top Miners Risk $10 Billion of Earnings on Carbon Cost – by Jesse Riseborough (Blolomberg News – November 23, 2015)

November 23, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s biggest mining companies face a combined $10 billion risk to their earnings if carbon pricing tightens in the wake of crucial global climate talks in Paris starting next week, according to a report from U.K. non-profit organization CDP.

CDP, which says it advises institutional investors with assets of $95 trillion, ranked 11 companies on climate change-related metrics including disclosure of emission-reduction targets, conducting water stress-test studies and preparing for an expected tightening of carbon regulation to emerge from the United Nations climate summit.

The estimate of earnings at risk, representing about 15 percent of the total for the group, assumes the introduction of a carbon price of $50 a metric ton, a level already accounted for by some companies, it said.

Empty words from the climate doomsayers – by Rex Murphy (National Post – November 7, 2015)

November 9, 2015

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

There is perhaps no political territory where piety trumps policy more exuberantly than global warming. Those leaders with a gift for high platitude delivered in the dialect of showy earnestness can always be confident of energetic applause from the multitudes who love to be seen as concerned and “making a difference” on this most vaporous of issues.

It is better to speak well on global warming than actually to follow through on the logic of the thought behind speaking well. The more eloquent the signals of planetary distress, the more dire the alarms raised, the less likely it is that those who summon that eloquence or issue those alarms will actually — as the wretched phrase has it — “walk the talk.”

It is now nearly seven years since the Chrysostom (golden mouth) of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, U.S. President Barack Obama, embedded in his victory speech the promise that the moment of his triumph was also “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

[South African] Platinum mines may run short of water in 2016 – by Tina Weavind (MiningMx.com – November 6, 2015)

November 6, 2015

http://www.miningmx.com/

[miningmx.com] – WHILE the mining industry is so far coping with the effects of the ‘Godzilla’ el Nino event causing a drought in large parts of South Africa, the potential for forced cuts still looms large.

Peter Shepherd, principal hydrologist at consulting agency SRK, said he anticipated that platinum mines in the country’s North West province would “… begin to run short [of water] in the next year”.

It’s a potential nightmare for already stressed companies whose operations would face a further setback. Mining is notoriously water intensive and imposed cuts would immediately limit production. Shepherd said that while much of the water used in the processes was recycled, the evaporation from the tailings dams meant this closed cycle system would become less efficient.

In its 2015 annual report released last month, Impala Platinum (Implats) flagged water shortages as one of the most critical issues the company faces and where interventions were needed.

[Sudbury, Canada] From barren rock to lush forests – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – September 2015)

August 24, 2015

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

Restoring the Sudbury Basin to its original state

Delegates to the 6th Mining and Environment International Conference in Sudbury June 20 to 25 received an update on the Sudbury Regreening Program and were able to see for themselves the steady progress the city has made in reversing the devastating effects of early mining activity in the region.

For the first few decades of the program, regreening activity focused on the liming of barren lands, seeding them with a grass and legume mixture and planting a limited variety of trees.

However, a major rethink and broadening of the program was triggered by the release of the Sudbury Soil Study’s ecological risk assessment in 2009, noted Stephen Monet, manager of environmental planning initiatives for the City of Greater Sudbury.

“The ecological risk assessment basically told us that we still had a lot of work to do and that there were still a lot of biologically impoverished areas. That led Vale, Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations and the City to move forward with a Biodiversity Action Plan.”

In Minnesota, fight between mining and environment gets personal – by by Stephanie Pearson (Al Jazeera America – August 23, 2015)

August 24, 2015

http://america.aljazeera.com/

Projects that would bring much-needed jobs could also ruin irreplaceable freshwater resources

ELY, Minn. — It’s the kind of July day that Minnesotans fantasize about in the dead of winter. Puffball clouds float in a blue sky and daisies sprout under stately pines lining Spruce Road, the main artery of an old logging network deep in the Superior National Forest about 15 miles southeast of Ely.

Paul Schurke is bumping down a dirt road in a Dodge Ram pickup truck. He owns Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge with his wife, Susan, and is famous in these parts as the explorer who co-led the first dogsled expedition to the North Pole without re-supply in 1986.

The dirt track ends before it reaches the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the roadless, motorless, cellphone-towerless 1.1-million-acre ecosystem where nearly 250,000 visitors from around the globe annually pilgrimage to paddle a connected chain of more than 1,000 pristine lakes.

Every night they break camp on a forested shoreline to hear the cool northern breeze whisper through the pines and loons project their mournful calls over vast stretches of open water. Occasionally an emerald display of Northern Lights flickers in a sky entirely free of light pollution.

Milkweed takes root on Vale slag pile – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 21, 2015)

August 21, 2015

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

The mountainous slag piles at nickel miner Vale in Sudbury are becoming a favourite landing spot for one of nature’s most threatened species.

A milkweed patch has also been established at the base of the waste industrial material on the periphery of the company’s Copper Cliff smelter complex in an effort to attract and boost the declining monarch butterfly population.

Long considered a nuisance plant, milkweed has been disappearing fast in recent decades due to the use of chemical herbicides and deforestation. The plant is crucial to the survival of the monarch butterfly on its journey between Mexico and Canada. It’s the only suitable plant for monarch to lay their eggs and is also a main food source of monarch caterpillars.

Lisa Lanteigne, Vale’s manager of environment, soil and water, first noticed the hardy perennial growing naturally at her Manitoulin Island cottage.

Rehabilitation efforts bring new life to Hemlo – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – August 18, 2015)

August 19, 2015

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Reclamation work being done by Barrick Gold at its Hemlo property near Marathon has changed the landscape of the former mining operation. Where once there stood a headframe, access roads and outbuildings, there is now only a grassy plain, accented by native trees and inhabited by a variety of wildlife.

This is what nature after mining looks like in 2015.

“It kind of caught us off guard, because the (David Bell) mine is still beside an operating mine,” said Shane Hayes, Barrick’s mine closure co-ordinator at Hemlo. “The area has been rehabilitated so quickly, I’d be lying if I said we weren’t surprised at how quickly nature re-established itself.”

Three mines started up at the Hemlo site in the 1980s. The still-operational Williams Mine produced 206,000 ounces of gold in 2014, while David Bell closed that same year. A third mine, Golden Giant, closed in 2010. The bulk of the rehabilitation work to date has focused on David Bell.

Sisson mine review raises water treatment concerns – by Julianne Hazlewood (CBC News New Brunswick – July 16, 2015)

July 16, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick

System used to treat water from tailings after the mine closes is unreliable and untested: report

A Sisson mine cost review commissioned by the provincial government goes a step beyond looking at the numbers, pointing out that the system proposed to treat tailings water after the open-pit mine shuts down is “known to fail.”

Engineering firm Amec Foster Wheeler was hired by the Department of Energy and Mines to review the costs for water treatment and restoring the tungsten and molybdenum mine after it closes.

But the company’s report, which was obtained by CBC News through the Right to Information Act, also said “there are some concerns regarding design of the post-closure water treatment process.”

“Curtain systems in pit lakes have been known to fail, especially in freeze-thaw,” the report from April 2015 said. “Therefore the idea of a floating baffle curtain wall may not be feasible.”

Time to Tackle Rare Earth’s Toxic Underbelly – by Matthew J. Kiernan (Huffington Post – July 9, 2015)

July 10, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/business/

Matthew J. Kiernan is the Founder and Chief Executive of Inflection Point Capital Management

On April 2, 2015, the BBC ran an investigative report that illustrated rare earth mining’s trail of destruction. Whilst it was not the first time that the toxicity of rare earth mining had been the subject of scrutiny, the graphic portrayal of a man-made toxic lake on the outskirts of Baotou in Mongolia, should be a wake-up call for consumers of digital TVs, computers and smart phones, which are the major users of rare earth elements.

BBC’s piece was written by Tim Maughan, who had received support from Unknown Fields Division, an NGO that has a track record of going to the farthest flung regions of the world to uncover hidden secrets. It is estimated that Baotou is the centre of production of half of China’s rare earth elements, with one tonne of rare earth elements producing 2,000 tonnes of toxic waste.

Baotou’s toxic lake raises the important question; how is that such important commodities continue to be mined with such low environmental standards? Rare earth mining has long been dominated by China, which up until recently produced over 90 percent of global production.

How Man-made Wetlands Help Treat Mine Wastewater – by Teresa Matich (Copper Investing News – July 6, 2015)

July 8, 2015

http://copperinvestingnews.com/

When a mine closes, mining companies must face the challenge of handling contaminated water and returning the surrounding environment to its natural state.

One way that some mining companies are handling mine wastewater is through the use of man-made wetlands. While that might seem novel, the use of constructed wetlands is anything but new.

The US Environmental Protection Agency notes that about 5,000 wetlands have been built in Europe, with about 1,000 in operation in the US — and that was in 2004. In addition to being used to treat wastewater from mines, constructed wetlands can be used to filter wastewater from other industries and to improve water quality in general. The process works by mimicking the complex filtration processes of natural wetlands, involving soils and vegetation as well as bacteria and other microorganisms.

Now, researchers are taking a look at using man-made wetlands to treat mine wastewater in Canada’s north. According to an article from Yukon News, scientists at the Yukon Research Center at Yukon College have been looking at the potential of man-made wetlands by running water containing copper, selenium, cadmium and zinc through eight Rubbermaid containers containing sand, gravel and wetland plants.

[South Africa] Govt, private sector working constructively to tackle acid mine drainage in Wits basin – by Ilan Solomons (MiningWeekly.com – July 3, 2015)

July 3, 2015

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Although acid mine drainage (AMD) in the Witwatersrand basin is the result of a legacy of environmental mismanagement of water resources by mines and lax enforcement of regulations by government, these role-players are working to constructively address this problem, says Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) senior manager Marius Keet.

Keet was a speaker during the first day of black-owned training and conferencing company Intelligence Transfer Centre’s two-day EnviroMining conference, held in Johannesburg, in March.

The Witwatersrand basin, a largely underground geological formation that surfaces in the Witwatersrand region of Johannesburg, comprises the Western, Central and Eastern basins.

A current key focus for government is to prevent further decanting of AMD from the basins by pumping underground water to protect the environmental critical level (ECL). The ECL is the level above which the water in the mine voids at critical locations, which is where environmental features that need to be protected are at the lowest elevations.

UNESCO to send group to Wood Buffalo National Park, says First Nations delegate – by Jodie Sinnema (Edmonton Journal – July 1, 2015)

July 2, 2015

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/index.html

Party will look at environment impact of oilsands development

UNESCO has agreed to send a monitoring committee to Wood Buffalo National Park to look at cumulative effects of oil, gas and hydro development on the environment, says a northern Alberta First Nation representative.

During a convention in Bonn, Germany this week, UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — reviewed concerns raised by the Mikisew Cree Nation about the sprawling national park that straddles the Alberta-Northwest Territories border.

The Mikisew Cree had petitioned to have Wood Buffalo — a World Heritage Site since 1983 — deemed “in danger” because of the Site C hydroelectric dam on the Peace River approved by the British Columbia and federal governments, as well as oilsands development and proposed open-pit mining near the northern Alberta park.

“The Mikisew have reported that First Nations have expressed significant concern about (the hydroelectric dam’s) impacts on their hunting, fishing and agricultural areas,” reads a document posted on UNESCO’s website.