Mining Environmental, Water Shortage and Land Reclamation/Revegetation Issues – Page 16

MINE WATER: Tough to share it with drought-stricken communities – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Since most mining operations in arid regions are zero-discharge facilities that don’t produce grey water, chances are slim today’s mining operators can share water with municipalities in times of drought.

In February, the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) held its second international symposium on water in mineral processing.

Those mining professionals and consultants in attendance viewed the event as pivotal in focusing miners’ attention on what they believed would emerged as mining’s hottest issue—water management strategies and their critical role in securing mining’s social license in the permitting and operation of mining projects and expansions.

Much was made by those presenting papers to SME that “opportunities abound for mine water reuse,” which can help with community water needs. In the future, mine wastewater could be reused for irrigation, steel manufacturing, hydraulic fracturing, or cooling and power generation, consultants advised.

MINE WATER: Water stewardship framework unveiled at UN water meeting – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – April 9, 2014)

April 9, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Impacts on water quality and quantity are among the most controversial aspects of mining projects. ICMM hopes well-designed and executed water stewardship strategies will build trust between miners and communities.

The International Council on Mining & Metals launched its new Water stewardship framework Tuesday as Ross Hamilton, ICMM director for environment and climate change, presented the framework at the United Nations CEO Water Mandate meeting in Lima, Peru.

“Water is one of the most significant issues facing the mining and metals industry,” Hamilton said. “It is a critical resource not only for all of our members’ operations but also for other industries, communities and the natural environment.

ICMM’s Water stewardship framework is built around four key elements including: be transparent and accountable’ engage proactively and inclusively; adopt a catchment-based approach; and effective water resource management.

The Water stewardship framework outlines a standardized approach for the mining and metals industry, “recognizing that water connects an operation to the surrounding landscape and communities,” said the ICMM.

Veolia Pushes Into Water Treatment at Mines Amid Tougher Rules – by Tara Patel (Bloomberg News – April 8, 2014)

April 8, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Veolia Environnement SA (VIE), Europe’s largest water utility, seeks to more than double sales to the mining industry to $2.1 billion by 2020 amid water scarcity and tougher environmental rules.

The added revenue would come from orders to treat water and waste from extraction industries as well as helping to boost energy savings at sites, the Paris-based utility said.

“The more the mining industry booms, the more mines are being located in areas where there are water shortages,” Chief Executive Officer Antoine Frerot said today at a press conference. Tougher environmental rules are also creating business for Veolia.

The CEO has sought to cut Veolia’s debt and narrow its global focus while at the same time targeting contracts with industry which can carry higher profit margins than municipal water agreements. The utility seeks to increase revenue and some measures of profit this year following a turnaround plan marked by asset sales and management changes.

“Water issues can be key, they can put projects on hold,” Christopher Howell, global director of mining and metals at Veolia, said today at the press conference. Mining companies are coming under increasing pressure from indigenous populations over water rights.

NEWS RELEASE: Keep dates open for seventh annual mine reclamation conference

April 7, 2014

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.

The Ontario Mining Association and the Canadian Land Reclamation Association are once again combining forces for the Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium and Field Trip, which is being held June 17 and 18, 2014 in Peterborough. This will be the seventh annual conference dedicated to this industry environmental activity.

A one-day symposium will highlight the history and status of mining in Southern Ontario. Also on the agenda are updates on current research and rehabilitation practices and specific reclamation projects.

The field trip will take participants to mine and aggregate sites in the Peterborough and Bancroft areas. This area was home to some of the earliest mining sites in Ontario. As part of the program, there is also a reception and banquet.

The ceremony will include the presentation of the Tom Peters Mine Reclamation Awards. There are two components to this environmental award – for companies rehabilitating specific mine sites and a $5,000 scholarship for university students, who must deliver a presentation on their research topic.

Feds reach $5.15B settlement over [Arizona] mining cleanup – by FELICIA FONSECA, ERIC TUCKER and DINA CAPPIELLO (Associated Press – April 04, 2014)

April 4, 2014

http://www.kltv.com/

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – For decades, uranium ore was mined from the Lukachukai Mountains of northeastern Arizona, providing Navajos with much-needed employment but leaving behind a legacy of death and disease on the reservation.

Uranium waste was thrown over the mountainside and carried by rain across the remote but scenic land used by hikers, anglers, medicine men and Navajo shepherds. The roughly 50 mine sites were eventually abandoned without cleaning up the contaminated waste.

The Navajo Nation now has its best chance yet to address what has been a source of heartache for families. The federal government announced Thursday that it reached a $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. for the cleanup of thousands of long-contaminated sites nationwide. About $1 billion will go to the 50 sites on the country’s largest American Indian reservation.

The settlement that resolves a legal battle over Tronox Inc., a spinoff of Kerr-McGee Corp., is the largest ever for environmental contamination. The bulk of the money – $4.4 billion – will pay for environmental cleanup and be used to settle claims stemming from the legacy contamination. Anadarko acquired Tronox in 2006.

Agencies Dodge Responsibility for Human Cost of Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining – by Mary Anne Hitt (Huffington Post – March 14, 2014)

March 14, 2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

Mary Anne Hitt is director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.

This week, we got some disappointing news – a judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers isn’t responsible for considering the health effects of coal pollution when it issues permits to fill valleys with rubble from mountaintop-removal coal mines. As Appalachian residents continue to suffer every year from well-documented health problems linked to mountaintop removal, this decision highlights a deadly loophole that requires long-overdue action from the White House and Congress.

Responsibility is a tricky thing. In our daily lives we work to be conscientious of our bills, our taxes, our family lives and a myriad of other duties that come up every day. But what happens when say, no one in the house takes responsibility for the dirty dishes? They keep piling up and things get pretty nasty.

Now, instead of dishes, think about what happens when no one chooses to take responsibility for the terrible effects coal pollution has on public health. From soot and smog to asthma, cancer and heart attacks, things go from nasty to life-threatening.

Norilsk Nickel Turns its Attention to the Environment and Tier 1 Assets – by Vladislav Vorotnikov (Engineering and Mining Journal – February 2014)

March 7, 2014

http://www.e-mj.com/

Something happened on the road to the Voronezh project; environmental activists backed by Putin convinced Russian nickel miners to clean up their act

MMC Norilsk Nickel, the largest mining company in Russia and one of the world’s largest nonferrous base-metal miners, faces very serious pressure from the community and Russian environmental protection organizations. They claim that the company’s activity harms the health of surrounding citizens and nature. These pressures combined with weaker prices for metals are raising future performance standards for the company.

In terms of total world production, Norilsk Nickel mines palladium (41%), nickel (17%), platinum (11%), cobalt (10%, concentrate) and copper (2%). Domestically, the company accounts for all of the platinum production, most of the nickel (96%), cobalt (95%) and a majority of the copper (55%). As an industrial leader, it plays a crucial role in the Russian economy, accounting for about 4.3% of all Russian exports, 1.9% of GDP, 2.8% of total industrial output and 27.9% of output of the non-ferrous metallurgy industry.

Recently Norilsk Nickel updated its development strategy, which, as confirmed by top management, dramatically changes its course for the coming years. The primary focus of development in accordance with the new plan will be on large assets, possibly including Voronezh, the last large non-developed nickel deposit in Europe.

Mining in an ENGO hole – by Peter Foster (National Post – March 5, 2014)

March 6, 2014

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

“We live in a world with thuggish NGOs breathing down our necks”

If Stephen Harper went to the mammoth Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention in Toronto this week to provide a boost to the industry, he chose a strange way of doing it.

Why would the PM bash Taseko Mines’ New Prosperity project in B.C. by suggesting that the environmental report that turned it down was “damning?” Presumably he did so to counter the constant allegation that his government is “soft” on the environment. However, his move backfired since it drew a sharp response from Taseko (as reported by the Post’s Peter Koven).

Taseko’s forthright vice president of corporate affairs, Brian Battison, questioned both Mr. Harper’s understanding of the project’s environmental threats and the status of related aboriginal land claims. He pointed our that those claims had been deemed not to meet the test of legal title. The case is now before the Supreme Court.

One doubts, meanwhile, that talking about turning down Taseko won the feds any brownie points when it comes to the real issue: the extraordinary success of radical environmental groups in holding the extractive industries in Canada —

Harper reassures miners after rejection of Taseko open-pit mine – by Kim Mackrael and Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – March 4, 2014)

March 4, 2014

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.

TORONTO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper sought to reassure the mining industry that his government was on its side after spurning the development of a high-profile gold and copper project in British Columbia.

In a surprise visit to a mining conference in Toronto, Mr. Harper defended his Conservative government’s rejection of Taseko Mines Ltd.’s New Prosperity project in the region of Cariboo-Chilcotin but said that did not mean the door was closed forever.

“The environmental assessment was extremely negative,” Mr. Harper told the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference.

But, he said, “We don’t like to see communities and regions deprived of what are obviously … significant opportunities for people in the region. “They are always in a position to examine the environmental assessment and to propose a new project based on their attempts to address some of the issues.”

Robert Redford: National ecological treasure in danger – by Robert Redford (U.S.A. Today – February 20, 2014)

February 24, 2014

http://www.usatoday.com/

I, along with many others, have been working for years to protect Bristol Bay, Alaska, from large-scale mining. This spectacular, unspoiled landscape is home to the largest wild salmon fishery in the world. Every year tens of millions of salmon return to Bristol Bay to feed thriving commercial and sports fishing industries, as well as brown bears, whales, bald eagles and wolves. And they’re the centerpiece of sustenance and culture for Alaska Natives who have lived there for thousands of years.

Incredibly, a Canadian-based mining company wants to build a vast open-pit gold and copper mine, one of the largest in the world, in the heart of this national treasure. The operation, known as Pebble Mine, would threaten the ecosystem and salmon – the entire lifeblood of the region.

That’s why it has been crystal clear to so many of us that this misguided scheme must be stopped. And now the federal Environmental Protection Agency has provided what should be the definitive evidence that the Pebble Mine would be a disaster.

In a final assessment of the Bristol Bay watershed that took three years of extensive scientific research, peer review and public comment to produce, the agency last month found the following:

Reader’s view: Copper-nickel mining devastated Sudbury and its surroundings – by Roberta Plewa (Duluth News Tribune – February 23, 2013)

February 24, 2014

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Regarding the copper-nickel mining issue, I want to mention a bit of history I have witnessed.

In the 1940s, my father worked for the railroad, entitling families free train travel. My aunt’s family lived in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Trains traveled circuitous routes then so we passed through Sudbury, Ontario. We were aware of mining there but unconcerned. In 1965 my family and I traveled that route to visit. On the way we decided to see the “big nickel.” When we reached the hilltop I looked around and observed a nightmare. It was black as far as one could see. Nothing but black. That was the legacy of copper-nickel mining.

The publicity for and against the Range project set me to thinking. My husband Googled the words “Earth/Sudbury” and retrieved significant information. Today “Greater Sudbury,” as it is called because of its expansion, has grown and prospered due to diversification. However, the original Sudbury, in spite of 50 years of reclamation efforts, still remains devastated.

The Chamber of Commerce of Sudbury acknowledges the devastation of the past but promotes the positive surrounding area. There is no mention of outcome for the watersheds that ultimately go to Lake Huron by way of the rivers and streams. There is no mention of health issues from breathing the black dust or birth defects.

‘Mine-to-Close’ method best for managing mine-closure risks – Beale – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – February 11, 2014)

February 11, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Heavy data gathering, lab testing instead of field tests, and standards-based regulation may not be the best approach to sustainable mine closure, says mining hydrologist Geoff Beale.

RENO (MINEWEB) – Mining hydrologist Geoff Beale of Schlumberger Water Services is urging mining companies to “take careful consideration of closure when planning their initial and expanded site layoffs” to reduce the chance of being saddled with mine pollution liability issues in perpetuity.

In a presentation to the Northern Nevada Section of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Monday night, Beale noted that mine operators increasingly adopt a “mine to close” approach when planning their initial and expanded site layouts.

Beale reminded his audience that the controlled mine closure has only occurred within the past two decades, and that many of the mines entering the closure stage now were developed before closure regulations existed.

Special Report: Areva and Niger’s uranium fight – by Daniel Flynn and Geert de Clercq (Reuters India – February 5, 2014)

February 5, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

ARLIT, Niger/PARIS – (Reuters) – When France began mining uranium ore in the desert of northern Niger in the early 1970s, Arlit was a cluster of miners’ huts stranded between the sun-blasted rocks of the Air mountains and the sands of the Sahara.

The 1973 OPEC oil embargo changed that. France embraced nuclear power to free itself from reliance on foreign oil and overnight this remote corner of Africa became crucial to its national interests.

Arlit has grown into a sprawling settlement of 117,000 people, while France now depends on nuclear power for three-quarters of its electricity, making it more reliant on uranium than any country on earth. Niger has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the ore after Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.

But uranium has not enriched Niger. The former French colony remains one of the poorest countries on earth. More than 60 percent of its 17 million people survive on less than $1 a day.

Arlit is a dusty and neglected place, scoured by desert sandstorms and barely touched by the mineral wealth it ships off to Europe each year.

Sage-grouse could become mining’s ‘Spotted Owl on Steroids’ – AMEA – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – February 4, 2014)

February 4, 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/

Federal designation of the Greater Sage-grouse as threatened or endangered could result in the withdrawal of over 17 million acres from mining, says the American Exploration & Mining Association.

RENO (MINEWEB) – The America Exploration & Mining Association (AEMA), formerly the Northwest Mining Association, recently accused the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service of making an unprecedented attempted to limit multiple use on public lands through use of “the Spotted Owl on Steroids”—the Greater Sage-Grouse.

“BLM and USFS are inappropriately using concerns about a potential listing of the Greater Sage-grouse as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act to asset a need for widespread land use restrictions—including withdrawing over 17 million acres from operation of the US Mining Law,” said AEMA, which represents U.S. explorationists, as well as mining companies.

The association claimed that the “sweeping land use restrictions and prohibitions” in the BLM/USFS Draft environmental impact statements for sage-grouse exceed the agencies’ statutory authority “by proposing actions that fail to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and violate:

Teck checking domestic piping system after Trail spill – by Sunny Dhilon (Globe and Mail – February 2, 2014)

February 3, 2014

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.

VANCOUVER — Teck Trail Operations says the company’s entire domestic piping system at its plant in Trail, B.C., is now being checked after a chemical spill last week reached the Columbia River.

Up to 25,000 litres of a high pH solution accidentally entered a domestic sewer line on Tuesday. The line, which runs to the regional district’s sewage treatment facility, discharges to the river.

The incident is not expected to have a long-term effect on fish or the environment, said the mining company, which has notified B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Environment Canada.

“We do take this incident very seriously and we will be conducting a very thorough investigation,” Richard Deane, a Teck spokesman, said in an interview Sunday.