Sudbury Basin – Page 39 – Republic of Mining

Sudbury forum: Natural resources still king – by Debbie M. Nicholson (Sudbury Star – June 18, 2016)

June 20, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Debbi M. Nicholson is president and CEO of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce network is celebrating resource champions across the nation. Chambers recognize that Canada’s future prosperity means creating the conditions for our natural resource sectors to succeed.

Greater Sudbury is home to the largest integrated mining complex in the world. Mining and mining supply and services is a key economic driver for our community and employs more than 14,000 people in Sudbury. The natural resource sector contributes greatly to the economic vitality of our community and this is why we decided to join the Resource Champions Initiative of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Canada’s chamber network – a group of 420 chambers from across the country representing every industrial sector – knows how important forest products and fisheries, miners and farmers, and energy producers of all stripes are to Canada’s economy.

Sudbury Accent: Mine rescue draws the best and brightest – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 11, 2016)

June 11, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

A mine rescue team at Fecunis Mine near Onaping has been called by mine management to stand by while a new emergency warning system is tested underground. All workers in the mine are expected to report in when a warning is sounded, but on this occasion three fail to do so.

No one is alarmed because the miners may not have smelled the stench gas released as warning when something goes wrong underground or heard the siren that was sounded. The mine rescue team forms two parties of three to search for the missing miners.

As they enter the mine, they are alarmed at the sound of an explosion. One of the three missing miners detonated a development blast when he shouldn’t have. The team meets the miner who tells them he blasted a round. He then tried to switch on a 36-inch diameter fan to clear gas from the blasted area, but it wouldn’t start, so he decided to exit the mine.

Sudbury Accent: Ontario’s first female mine rescue captain – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 11, 2016)

June 11, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Lynne Bouchard Thompson didn’t give a second thought to the fact she was the first female captain of a mine rescue team in Ontario at the time. Bouchard Thompson was drawn to mine rescue while working as a planner in engineering at Kirkland Lake Gold’s St. Andrew Goldfields Ltd. She’s now working as a construction supervisor in training.

She was intrigued with the idea of getting involved in mine rescue and attracted to the “extracurricular” aspect of it. She checked around, found out more about it and said to herself: “I want in on this team.”

There are three mine rescue teams at Kirkland Lake Gold, and its members are a tightly knit community, Bouchard Thompson said Friday at the 67th Annual Provincial Mine Rescue Competition at NORCAT Training Centre near Onaping. Her first year at the mining company, she aimed to get on the competitive mine rescue team and she did. The second year she moved up to vice-captain.

MOON MINING It’s closer than ever thanks to a small Canadian company – by D’Arcy Jenish (Canadian Mining Journal – June 1, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Mining here on earth is a brute force industry, says Dale Boucher, chief executive officer of Deltion Innovations Ltd. of Capreol, Ont.

“If a rock is too big, you just get a bigger hammer to hit it with,” says Boucher.” You can’t take the same approach with space mining. You have to learn how to do things with very little weight and very little power.” Mining in outer space may seem like the stuff of science fiction but, in fact, it is going to happen sooner than most of us can imagine. NASA is currently planning a lunar Resource Prospector Mission; with a “notionally targeted launch” in 2018.

While the mother ship orbits the moon, a lander will descend to the surface. A rover will emerge from the lander, equipped with a robotic drill designed to explore for ice water at the South Pole, and Deltion is one of the companies in the running to supply the drill.

Sudbury’s air quality continues to improve – by Ben Leeson (Sudbury Star – June 9, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Greater Sudburians should be breathing a little easier these days, based on the results of Clean Air Sudbury’s newest report.

Clearing in the Air, the third report by the local non-profit group on air quality trends in the city, was released on Wednesday. Based on data from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, the National Pollutant Release Inventory and the Greater Sudbury Sulphur Dioxide and Particulate Monitoring Networks operated by Vale and Glencore, the report showed that Greater Sudbury’s air quality continues to improve.

“This is a trend we have seen over a number of decades,” said Ray Potvin, a former air quality specialist for the province and private sector, who authored the report. “This report shows that trend is ongoing. These improvements are consistent with what we’ve seen across the province, in terms of air quality, during the past 10 years. This is a result of governments requiring stricter emission controls.”

Mining changes some comfort to grieving family – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 9, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

The mother of a young man killed in a mining accident exactly five years ago says amendments to a mining regulation to make mines safer offer some comfort to her grieving family.

Wendy Fram attended a news conference Wednesday led by the chief prevention officer of Ontario, George Gritziotis, about amendments to Regulation 854 (Mines and Mining Plants) under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The amendments relate to risk assessments and requirements for certain high hazards such as water and traffic management, and recording of seismic events. They clarify and enhance requirements regarding conveyors, suggested by the Mining Legislative Review Committee. There are also amendments to requirements for surface diamond drilling reflect changes to training programs approved by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Mining review update marks grim 5th anniversary – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 8, 2016)

June 8, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Ontario’s chief prevention officer will be in Sudbury on Wednesday to discuss new mining regulations as well as progress on recommendations from the Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review.

George Gritziotis will speak to reporters on the fifth anniversary of the deaths of Jordan Fram, 26, and Jason Chenier, 35. The men died June 8, 2011at Vale’s Stobie Mine when they were overcome by a run of 350 tons of muck.

Investigations showed there was excess water in the 100-year-old Stobie Mine and that warnings about unsafe working conditions given by Chenier, who was a supervisor, were not heeded. Vale and one of its supervisors faced more than a dozen charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act for infractions relating to excess water and other hazards.

[Ontario Geological Survey] These ‘detectives’ dig deep – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 7, 2016)

June 7, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Ask Jack Parker what the Ontario Geological Survey has contributed to life in Sudbury and he’ll tell you it’s a long story, 125 years long.

Parker is acting director of the agency established in 1891 as the Ontario Bureau of Mines. It was renamed the OGS in 1978. In a century and a quarter, its geologists and geoscientists have published 10,000 maps and almost 6,000 reports, and every one of them is available to the public online.

A geologist who started with what was then the Ontario division of mines in 1977, Parker was named acting director of the OGS in December 2015 with the retirement of former director Andy Fyon. The OGS collects and documents information about Ontario’s geology. It conducts bedrock mapping of exposed rock, and maps deposits of sand and gravel left by glaciers.

Encouraging results for Sudbury mining company Wallbridge – by Staff (Sudbury Star – June 1, 2016)

June 1, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Wallbridge Mining Company Limited says new studies of its flagship Parkin Properties in Sudbury show promising results. Lively-based Wallbridge is exploring the Parkin Properties, located north of Capreol, for nickel, copper, and platinum group metal mineralization.

“We continue to have excellent results from our exploration programs at Parkin as demonstrated by the results reported in the last few months. Attractive copper, nickel, and PGM grades continue to be intersected and the mineralization intersected in the most recent holes is expanding the near-surface mineralization yet further north,” Marz Kord, president and CEO of Wallbridge, said in a release.

“With over nine kilometres of strike length with similar under-explored geology, the potential for further discoveries of new zones on the Parkin Offset dyke looks very promising,” Kord said.

Sudbury was a mineral training ground for NASA astronauts – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – May 27, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Laughter erupts from Ruth Debicki of the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS) when asked if her brush with space exploration royalty in the early 1970s stands out as a career highlight.

“We do lots of interesting stuff and we meet lots of interesting people,” replied Debicki, the OGS’s land use policy and planning coordinator based in Sudbury. “In the OGS’s 125 years of history, this was one day out of 45,000.”

Back in the spring of 1972, Debicki was a junior staffer in the small resident geologist office in Sudbury when her boss, Ken Card, fielded a call from NASA. The three-man crew of Apollo 17 — Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt — were arriving in Sudbury, May 24-25, for geological training.

Putting Sudbury, North ‘on the map’ – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – May 26, 2016)

May 26, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury’s export community got a nearly $2 million shot in the arm on Wednesday afternoon.

Navdeep Bains, Canada’s federal minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and the minister responsible for FedNor, stopped by B&D Manufacturing, on Municipal Road 15 in Chelmsford, to announce $952,100 in funding for the Northern Ontario Exports Program (NOEP).

That amount will be matched by the provincial government for a total contribution of about $1.9 million. “This particular investment is designed to boost the value of exports and improve the capacity of northern Ontario firms,” Bains said. “This targeted investment will support ongoing delivery of the Northern Ontario Exports Program for a two-year period.”

NEWS RELEASE: Wallbridge Mining Enters Into Agreement to Acquire Fenelon Gold Project in Quebec

May 25, 2016

http://www.wallbridgemining.com/

Toronto, Ontario — May 25, 2016 – Wallbridge Mining Company Limited (TSX: WM, FWB: WC7) (“Wallbridge”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent (“LOI”) dated May 24, 2016 (the “Agreement Date”) to acquire 100% of the Fenelon Gold Property (“Fenelon Mine Property”) from Balmoral Resources Ltd.
(TSX:BAR; OTCQX:BALMF) (“Balmoral”) for a purchase price of $3.6 M.

The Fenelon Mine Property is an advanced stage project with near-term production potential, as well as drill intersections suggesting exploration potential for resource expansion. The project is located in West-Central Quebec, within the same geological belt that hosts the large Detour Gold mine in Ontario.

“This acquisition is an important step forward for Wallbridge as we implement our strategy of becoming a sustainable producer. Having completed our Broken Hammer open pit mine last year, where we achieved production substantially in excess of the resource estimate in the prefeasibility study and received recognition for safety, this new project allows us to leverage our experience and knowledge as a proven operator to create value for our shareholders.

[Sudbury] The Best Underground Technology Cluster in North America – by Dick DeStefano (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – May 2016)

May 17, 2016

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director SAMSSA.

Northern Ontario Shines in Underground Technologies

Michael Denham, the new CEO of Canada’s Business Development Bank, recently acknowledged that small to medium enterprises (SMEs) represent 99.8 per cent of all Canadian companies, produce 66 per cent of jobs in the country, represent more than 50 per cent of Canada’s GDP and that we need more SMEs generating more growth to sustain our economy in an era of globalization and increasing numbers of free trade agreements.

These observations apply to numerous sectors of the economy, but are especially valid in the most sophisticated underground technology centre in Canada. The number of employees in Northern Ontario with its 500 plus mining supply and service companies employing approximately 23,000 people is double the number of people directly employed by mining companies in Northern Ontario.

Free trade agreements, which are proliferating in the global market, will be advantageous to SMEs offering sophisticated technologies that will enhance productivity. These companies are very visible in our mining cluster in Northern Ontario.

Regreening conference a head-scratcher for industry – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – May 11, 2016)

May 12, 2016

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The opening day of the Sudbury Protocol Conference got off to a shaky start with plenty of unanswered questions thrust upon the organizers. The Laurentian University initiative aims to take Sudbury’s regreening expertise, gained over the last 40 years from repairing the environmental damage from mining, and globally package it for use by other communities adversely impacted by industrial development.

As they launched the conference on May 10, local experts expressed uncertainty about the business side of the project and what financial benefits the protocol is proposing.

“I’m still fundamentally confused by what you’re trying to package. I’m asking you to create a business plan,” said Dick DeStefano, executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSAA)., on the opening day of the three-day conference held at Dynamic Earth. “If you don’t have a business plan, I can’t sell it.”