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Mining Environmental, Water Shortage and Land Reclamation/Revegetation Issues

Moonscape to greenbelt: Conference celebrates regreening – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – June 9, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

www2.laurentian.ca/sudbury2015

Sudbury world-renowned for its remediation program

Researchers from as far away as Russia and Norway will gather in Sudbury for the sixth Mining and Environment International Conference at Laurentian University June 20-25.

“The goal this year is to really celebrate the successes of the Sudbury regreening program,” said Graeme Spiers, an associate professor with Laurentian’s faculty of the environment, and one of the conference organizers. “Sudbury is recognized globally for this. The citizens of Sudbury should be really proud of what the city has done.”

The “Sudbury Method,” as some have termed the city’s regreening effort, which began in 1978, has served as a model for jurisdictions around the world to remediate environments damaged by mining, smelting and other industrial activities.

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Strip-mining the Ocean Floor: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? – by Miyoko Sakashita (Huffington Post – May 14, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

Miyoko Sakashita is the Oceans Director, Center for Biological Diversity.

Have you heard about the disastrous gold rush brewing in our oceans? Not content with getting minerals from dry land, companies are now aiming to strip mine our ocean floors in search of nickel, copper, cobalt, gold and other valuable metals and minerals. Many of them would end up in our electronics.

But there’s a heavy price to be paid: Like mountain-top removal mining, deep-sea mining involves massive cutting machines that will leave behind barren, underwater landscapes — some of the richest and most pristine ecosystems left on the planet.

This week, the Center for Biological Diversity (where I work) took the first steps in slowing down this deep sea gold rush by filing a lawsuit challenging the permits that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued to a Lockheed Martin subsidiary to mine the mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and Mexico.

While there’s much that we still don’t understand about life on the deep sea floor, we do know that the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is teeming with wildlife, including sperm whales, spinner dolphins, loggerhead sea turtles, great hammerhead sharks and a vast array of fish, corals, snails and sponges.

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REFILE-As rivers dry up, Chile copper mines turn to the Pacific for water – by Anthony Esposito and Fabian Cambero (Reuters U.S. – April 12, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Alvaro Badillo remembers a time when his dad would take him fishing in the stream just a stone’s throw away from the dusty streets of their small hometown of Caimanes in central Chile.

Now, like countless communities that dot the arid valleys north of the capital, Santiago, Caimanes is left with a dry riverbed. The culprit? That depends on who you ask.

For many in the town of 1,200 people, the answer lies just a few miles upstream: a 470 foot tall wall that stretches nearly a half-mile straight across the valley. It is the tailings dam for Los Pelambres, Chilean miner Antofagasta Plc’s flagship copper mine, which holds enough leftover processed rock to fill some 140,000 Olympic swimming pools.

For its part, Antofagasta blames an eight-year drought in Chile for the evaporation of already slim water resources, and says the canals it built to redirect rain water have minimized the impact on the stream.

Both sides have findings that support their arguments and are thrashing them out in a court battle that could stop work at one of the world’s biggest copper mines.

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[Barrick Gold] Unprecedented sage grouse protection deal signed in Nevada – by Scott Sonner (Washington Times – March 26, 2015)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Associated Press – RENO, Nev. – An unprecedented attempt to protect sage grouse habitat across parts of more than 900 square miles of privately owned land in Nevada will begin under a deal Thursday involving the federal government, an environmental group and the world’s largest gold mining company.

The agreement comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approaches a fall deadline for a decision on whether to protect the greater sage grouse, a bird roughly the size of a chicken that ranges across the West, under the Endangered Species Act.

Commercial operations, including mining companies and oil and gas producers, are entering into such deals in an effort to keep the bird off the threatened or endangered list because the classification would place new restrictions on their work.

The deal involves Barrick Gold Corp., The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service. It establishes a “conservation bank,” providing the mining firm credit for enhancing critical habitat, in exchange for flexibility in future operations. It aims to preserve and restore more habitat than is lost through development while at the same time providing Barrick with more certainty as it maps out new mining plans.

“This is the kind of creative, voluntary partnership that we need to help conserve the greater sage grouse, while sustaining important economic activities on western rangelands,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said.

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Sudbury Accent: The prodigal ling returns to Ramsey – by Bruce Heidman (Sudbury Star – March 21, 2015)

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

They aren’t even close to pretty and their song is not nearly as sweet, but the return of ling to Sudbury’s Ramsey Lake after a 100-year absence is serving as a veritable canary in a coal mine.

Local fish biologists were stunned when it came to their attention that ling, an environmentally sensitive cold-water fish also commonly known as burbot, have returned to Ramsey, where the last recorded catch came in 1912. The discovery is significant because it shows the lake has bounced back even better than scientists thought from decades of environmental degradation, mostly due to sewage, mining and acid rain.

Local biologist John Gunn, one of a handful of scientists who have done extensive research on Ramsey Lake, Sudbury’s crown jewel, for the better part of 30 years, didn’t believe the news when he first heard it.

“We were shocked,” he said. “We didn’t think for all the work and time we have spent around that lake that something like that would slip by us. They are not a species people move around and they are a very clean water fish that has been lost in Killarney and Temagami, and the ling disappeared before the lake trout, so when we saw a pollution-sensitive species disappear and then start swimming around in front of the (Living With Lakes Centre) building, we were surprised.

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Here’s What Coal Mining Is Doing to Communities in the Navajo Nation – by Laura Dattaro (Vice News – March 18, 2015)

 

https://news.vice.com/

For sixty years, the billions of tons of coal found beneath Arizona’s Black Mesa have powered the cities of the Southwest. But getting at all that coal has meant the displacement of more than 12,000 people of the Navajo Nation, one of the largest removals of Native Americans since the 19th century. For those that have remained, the mining process has compromised their health and their environment.

The mesa rises up from the dry Arizona landscape a few miles south of Kayenta Township, where Peabody Energy operates a mine that in 2013 produced nearly eight million tons of coal. The company proposed in May 2012 to expand its excavation, a plan that needs approval from the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE). Locals are concerned because that would add 841 acres of land to the Kayenta Mine complex — which would displace even more Navajo and ensure continued air and water contamination for decades to come.

A VICE News crew traveled to the Black Mesa area to document the effects of coal mining on their health, the environment, and the local economy.

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Sudbury’s Environmental Revival – by Boghos Ghougassian (Arab Forum for Environment & Development – December 1, 2012)

http://www.afedonline.org/en/

The Greater Sudbury area in Ontario Province, Canada, 400 km north of Toronto city, was one of the earliest regions of the world to feel the harmful impact of unsustainable industrial development. It was also one of the first to recognize the mistakes and determined to correct them.

For nearly a century, mining and logging activities had converted the Greater Sudbury area into an inhospitable land. It had been dubbed as moonscape, its blackened scar visible from outer space. Even the Apollo 16 astronauts have done their exercises in here in 1971, before landing on the moon surface.
Greater Sudbury encompasses one of the largest known nickel ore bodies on Earth, with an area of more than 60 km2. This has earned Sudbury international recognition as “the Nickel Capital of the World”.

Sudbury was found in 1883 as a railway station town. So dominant were the trees, the Jesuits called their parish “Ste. Anne of the pines”. The trees also caught the attention of wood logging companies who clear cut the area leading to loss of biologic diversity, erosion of soils and other environmental impacts. Records indicate that Sudbury’s forests have been swarmed with some 11,000 loggers during the late 1880s.

With the discovery of nickel, early mining and smelting processes in 1886 to 1929 delivered another devastating blow to the environment. The metal rich rock was ignited in open “roast beds” cloaking the area in dense clouds of sulfur dioxide’s acidic smoke, which devastated the remaining green vegetation and acidified the freshwater of many lakes of the region, killing fishes and many other aquatic species.

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Future Fumes?: Will Sudbury super stack be needed by Vale after retrofit project? (Canadian Mining Journal – February/March 2015)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

At more than 388m high and just over 36m wide at base, Vale’s “Super Stack” in Sudbury is unquestionably the city’s most outstanding feature.

In fact, it’s also one of Northern Ontario’s more outstanding features because it’s literally the tallest structure in the north and can be seen for miles from every direction as it towers over the city.

Even Sudbury’s world-renown “Big Nickel” pales by comparison when it comes to size and impressive landmarks. Built from almost 16,500m3 of concrete and strengthened with nearly 956 tonnes of 38mm and 13mm re-bar, the stack is a solid monument that has withstood the harshest of conditions that Mother Nature could throw at it.

Extreme cold and blowing snow, fierce winds and driving rain, heat and lightning, and even ground-shaking tremours, have barely made a mark on the stack. And, the fact that it’s also lined from top to bottom with 6.4mm nickel stainless steel and that its walls are 1.1m thick at the base and 267mm at the top, have all added to make the stack almost indestructible.

It was clearly built to last and since it started rising on the horizon in 1970, and subsequently going into service on August 21, 1972, the stack has performed as planned by safely carrying sulphur dioxide from INCO’s (now Vale’s) Copper Cliff smelter high into the atmosphere and away from the city.

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Chilean Mining Minister Seeks to Reassure Miners on Water – by Alistair MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – March 1, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

The Chilean government is seeking to reassure mining companies that it has no intention of forcing miners to run their mines using a desalinated water supply, the country’s minister of mining said, in news that may come as a relief to a mining industry that has seen increased demands on it in developing markets.

In recent decades, Chile has built a reputation as being the most mining-friendly jurisdiction among developing economies. Lately, however, some miners and sector bankers say that while still a benchmark in the developing world, Chile isn’t as friendly a jurisdiction as it once was.

Aurora Williams said that while there has been some demands for miners to use desalinized water, in which seawater is stripped of its salt, her government doesn’t plan to force miners to use this water.

“This is not something that is being considered” by the government, she said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Some miners, though, may have to use desalinized water, given the nature of Chile’s geography as a thin country bordering the sea. “It is what nature demands,” Ms. Williams said. Ms. Williams was speaking at the opening of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada’s annual conference in Toronto.

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Drought in Chile curbs copper production, to trim global surplus – by Eric Onstad and Rosalba O’Brien (Reuters Africa – February 25, 2015)

http://af.reuters.com/

LONDON/SANTIAGO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A drought in Chile is hampering copper production, a water-intensive business, in the world’s biggest producer of the metal, one more factor that could trim an expected surplus this year.

Both Anglo American and BHP Billiton have said the extremely dry conditions have hit production due to restrictions on water, used for everything from toilets for workers to separating the metals in the ore body from waste rock and tamping down dust that heavy trucks kick up.

“The one caveat or the risk I think that we need to flag… is Chile is still in drought,” Anglo Chief Executive Mark Cutifani told a results presentation last week. “It remains a risk, and in fact it was impacting our operating performance in November and December.”

In some parts of Chile, January was one of the driest since records began, exacerbating a drought that began in 2007, said Chilean meteorologist Claudia Villarroel. Winters in central Chile are becoming drier because of climate change, she added.

Indeed, Anglo’s Los Bronces mine in central Chile has been the worst affected of the company’s mines. It warned that water scarcity at the mine, the world’s sixth-largest copper producer, could cut as much 30,000 tonnes or 4 percent off Anglo’s overall copper output this year.

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Leaders hope to inspire new [economic] visions for Sudbury – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – January 28, 2015)

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

Four community leaders came together Tuesday at a chamber of commerce event to share their thoughts on what makes Sudbury an attractive place to live and what will enhance its culture and economy going forward.

Sean Murray, head of pediatrics at Health Sciences North, said his dream is to create a freestanding medical facility for children in Sudbury.

“I really want to inspire the City of Greater Sudbury, and our rural communities as well, to try to improve health care for children, who unfortunately often get left in the mix of everything else that goes on,” he said.

Murray said he had performed a procedure earlier in the day on a boy who has chronic medical issues, including autism spectrum disorder, and was suffering from headaches. “I had to stick a needle into his back to take spinal fluid out and measure how much pressure was in his brain,” he said.

But since the boy has particular sensitivities to needles and crowds of people, the procedure had to be done in OR. “It really highlighted for me the importance of having something that is child-friendly,” he said. “We need to minimize those types of traumas that kids go through.”

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NEWS RELEASE: Excellon Announces Management Changes

TORONTO, ON–(Marketwired – January 27, 2015) – Excellon Resources Inc. (TSX: EXN) (OTC: EXLLF) (“Excellon” or the “Company”), Mexico’s highest grade silver producer, is pleased to announce key additions to its management and technical advisory team. In an ongoing effort to continually improve operations and realize further efficiencies at the Platosa mine, the Company has engaged a team of water management consultants, including Multiurethanes Ltd., Hydro-Ressources Inc., and Technosub Inc.

Multiurethanes Ltd. is a technical services company specializing in support services for grouting operations in heavy civil construction, utility and mining industries. The company is led by Peter White, a Mining Engineer and renowned grouting specialist with over 30 years of experience in international mining projects in Canada, United States, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia.

He is an expert in controlling major water inflows and troubleshooting difficult grouting projects. Mr. White has supervised and designed grouting programs for several well-known companies including, Vale, Goldcorp, KGHM, De Beers, Nyrstar, Pan American Silver and Agnico Eagle Mines.

Hydro-Ressources Inc. is led by Michael Verreault, a hydro-geologist and expert in optimizing water management and mine dewatering. He has worked on several projects using groundwater recharge, numerical simulation, tracer test and hydro-geological studies in groundwater and surface water. Mr. Verreault has worked on several notable projects for Goldcorp, Osisko and Iamgold and on Cameco’s Cigar Lake deposit.

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Unearthing Mining Water Technology Innovation – by Paul O’Callaghan (Water World – January 2015)

 http://www.waterworld.com/index.html

http://www.bluetechresearch.com/

Paul O’Callaghan is CEO of Bluetech Research. The article is based on the report: Wastewater Treatment in Mining Metals.

Water access challenges and new mining discharge regulations are creating opportunities for the application of new water technologies. Yet the size and complexity of operations and cost of treating mining wastewater has slowed innovation. Which technologies/companies are emerging as successful?

As with many industrial sectors, the treatment of wastewater in mining applications is a secondary consideration tied to environmental policy and regulation, rather than a core operating practice.

As a result, many operators focus on well understood processes that require significant civil work, such as lime softening, tailings storage and chemical precipitation to be used as the primary system applied for heavy metals removal. However, in some instances novel and innovative technologies have been adopted with beneficial results.

There are several drivers leading to adoption of more advanced treatment technology, including:

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Sudbury reaches halfway mark in reclamation efforts – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – January 14, 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.

If you were a youth in Sudbury, chances are you, or someone you know, spent a summer or two lugging bags of dolomite limestone up the city’s barren hills, prepping the ground for reforestation.

The routine is so ubiquitous, it’s almost become a rite of passage, said Dr. Peter Beckett, a reclamation, restoration and wetland ecologist with Laurentian University who’s dedicated his life’s work to rejuvenating the city’s landscape.

“I’m beginning to think that, by the time we finish this program, everybody in Sudbury will have done this,” Beckett chuckled during his keynote address at a recent meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. “It’s part of growing up in Sudbury, to put lime bags down on the hills.”

Over four decades, the city has spent $28 million planting 9.5 million trees, and life has returned to Sudbury, once pegged as a barren moonscape. Yet despite the decades-long investment, the work is only half done: 3,450 hectares have been reclaimed, but 7,000 altogether need to be done.

That’s still a fraction of the 81,000 hectares impacted by industrial activity, which began with logging in the late 1800s and intensified with the onset of mining when open roasting beds sent high levels of sulphur dioxide into the air, raining down metal particulate, which leached into the soil, impacting the ecosystem.

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Baffinland deflects Nunavut regulator’s recommendations (Nunatsiaq News – January 6, 2015)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“Changes in the health of caribou because of project activities are unlikely”

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. has responded to recommendations from the Nunavut Impact Review Board, but the company doesn’t plan to follow many of them at its Mary River mine site.

The NIRB’s 2013-14 monitoring report -— designed to keep Mary River in compliance with its project certificate — did not raise any issues of significant concern, but made some recommendations following a September 2014 site visit.

Most had to do with different wildlife monitoring and waste management programs at the Baffin site, like the NIRB’s recommendation to analyse dust-fall or ash in caribou pellets.

Baffinland said it would continue to gather caribou fecal pellet samples for different kinds of monitoring, but that the program would be limited because there are so few caribou in the project area.

“Samples will be analyzed for ash content when a sufficient sample of fresh pellets are collected,” read Baffinland’s Dec. 12 response to the NIRB.

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