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Sudbury Basin

Occupational health: Workplace safety research centre opens – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – April 28, 2015)

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

In the heart of a building that is the epicentre of sports on the Laurentian University campus, cutting-edge research into workplace health and safety underway in the city for seven years finally has a place to call home.

The new Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health laboratory and research facility, which was made available by the university and consists of 1,695 square feet of laboratory space and 629 square feet of office and meeting space, officially opened in the Ben Avery building Monday.

“We are risk takers … and we are not going to stop until we get it right,” Tammy Eger, the centre’s research chairwoman and an associate professor in the Laurentian School of Human Kinetics, told more than 50 people on hand for the opening. “This centre is about community. It’s about the passion we have for health and safety…We’re going to develop the solutions, expand the knowledge and sustainability. We’re going to make a difference, not only in Northern Ontario, but nationally and internationally. This is your centre.”

The centre was established in 2008 by Laurentian to provide a formalized structure for industry, safe workplace associations, labour groups, government organizations, and researchers to share workplace injury and disease problems and solutions.

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NEWS RELEASE: VALE AND THE UNITED STEELWORKERS REACH TENTATIVE DEAL IN SUDBURY & PORT COLBORNE

SUDBURY, April 27 2015 – Vale and United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500 and Local 6200 are pleased to announce that an early tentative agreement has been reached on a new five-year contract for Production & Maintenance employees in Sudbury and Port Colborne. The new 5-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will come into effect on June 1, 2015.

Details of the tentative agreement will remain confidential until the USW holds ratification meetings with its members on Wednesday April 29 and Thursday April 30.

“The negotiations process has been productive and respectful, and we are encouraged that we have been able to reach an early tentative agreement that is unanimously recommended by both bargaining committees for our members to consider,” said Rick Bertrand, President of USW Local 6500. “We endorse this deal and look forward to presenting the details to our membership as it paves the road for the next 5 years.”

“We believe we have reached a tentative agreement that appropriately meets the needs of both the company and our USW Local 6500 and 6200 employees,” said Mitch Medina, Manager, HR, Health, Safety & Environment and lead negotiator for Vale. “Both teams have worked very hard and in a spirit of cooperation to achieve the positive result we were all hoping for.”

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Sudburians a happy lot, study finds – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – April 22, 2015)

Sudburians – Suzanne from We Live Up Here on Vimeo.

http://www.sudburians.com/

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

Life ain’t all bad in the Nickel City. In fact, it’s great, judging by a new report from Stats Canada. A study released this week shows Sudbury is at or near the top of Canadian cities when it comes to citizen contentment.

Data for the report — titled How’s Life in the City? — was compiled through surveys conducted from 2009 to 2013, with respondents asked to rate their level of life satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10.

Of the 33 metropolitan areas sampled in the study, Sudbury boasted the highest percentage — 45% — of individuals who rated their life satisfaction as 9 or 10.

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The happiest city in Canada is . . . Sudbury – by Robin Levinson King (Toronto Star – April 22, 2015)

Sudburians – Jason from We Live Up Here on Vimeo.

http://www.sudburians.com/

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Many assume that wealth is a sign of happiness — but early research shows that health and community belongingness are better at predicting life satisfaction.

Sudbury has the most happy people out of any city in the country. But Heather McTaggart already knew that.

Although she left the town in her early 20s, she moved back in 2012 to study midwifery at Laurentian University. “I keep moving away,” she said. “But I had to come back to Sudbury.”

With its giant smokestack and remote location at the top of Georgian Bay, few would consider Sudbury a must-see destination.

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City backs deep mining project in Sudbury – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – April 15, 2015)

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

Sudbury’s Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation is getting a big boost. City council voted unanimously on Tuesday to invest $200,000 per year for the next five years in CEMI, for its commercialization attainment project (CAP).

By 2019, a total of $1 million will have been invested through the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation, the city’s economic development wing.

“The $1 million is part of the contribution of a number of projects that are contributing to the commercialization of various projects that’ll help the mining industry in Sudbury,” Mayor Brian Bigger said after Tuesday’s meeting.

The commercialization initiative, part of a $47-million ultra-deep mining program — projects breaking ground at least 2.5 km below the surface — aims to research and innovate solutions, and to open markets for Sudbury-based small- and medium-sized businesses.

According to a city press release, ultra-deep mining innovation “will lead the way in helping ultra-deep mines operate more effectively and safely, generate more value, improve the human environment and enhance mine productivity.”

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KGHM relies on Canada for growth – Business Network News with Andrew Bell (March 2, 2015)

  http://www.bnn.ca/ Polish-owned KGHM International is one of the world’s largest miners of copper and silver. A look at the subsidiary’s big growth projects in Canada, including planned base metals mines in Sudbury, ON, and near Kamloops, BC., with Derek White, CEO, KGHM International.

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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Mining review final report near end of March – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – February 18, 2015)

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

A much anticipated report on improving safety in Ontario mines will be released by the end of March, focusing on challenges in the mining sector today and those anticipated tomorrow, says the province’s chief prevention officer.

It will contain some recommendations that are regulatory and require amendments to mining legislation and others that are voluntary or industry-led, directed at employers, workers, health and safety committees, and other stakeholders.

The final report will be the result of 14 months’ work including several meetings by the stakeholder advisory panel, and public and private consultations with dozens and dozens of miners, more than 90 mining industry experts and several health and safety advocates.

George Gritziotis has been leading the mining review and he said he’s pleased with the way the final report is shaping up. Last week, he was going over a draft and consulting with panel members to put the finishing touches on it.

The Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review was ordered in December 2013 by then Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi after a Sudbury-led campaign to reduce the number of mining fatalities by improving working conditions underground.

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‘Full speed ahead’ for Victoria Mine, says KGHM manager – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life -February 11, 2015)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Project still waiting for full funding from KGHM

It’s still “full speed ahead” for KGHM’s Victoria Mine project in Sudbury, said a senior manager with the company in Sudbury.

Trevor Eagles, KGHM’s manager of engineering in Sudbury, said the project is finalizing a feasibility study, and is on schedule to complete a mining shaft by 2019.

In 2014 KGHM completed timbering at the site, located about two kilometres south of the historic Victoria Mine, which was first developed in the 1890s and then closed in the 1920s.

The former Inco reopened the mine in the 1970s, and made a deal with KGHM’s predecessor, FNX, in 2002, to take control. A long and thin ore body – about 50 kilometres long – was discovered in 2010, which the company now wants to bring into production.

KGHM estimates the new mine site contains 14.2 million tonnes of resources. The inferred resources include 700 million pounds of copper, 700 million pounds of Nickel and 3.5 million ounces of platinum group elements. “Everybody working on the project is fully confident we have a world-class ore deposit and a very strong business case,” said Eagles.

KGHM’s original plan was to sink two mine shafts at the site – an initial exploration shaft, and a second larger shaft for production – but in the last six to eight months, the company decided instead to go with one larger mine shaft.

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Sudbury needs premier needs to act boldly [turn Laurentian in global Harvard of hardrock mining] – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – February 9, 2015)

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

Note: this is the second of two parts.

Sudbury: Paris of the Mining World

While I can’t remember who coined the phrase, “Sudbury, the Paris of the Mining World” – I wish I had been that clever – there is an amazing amount of truth to the statement. Obviously, in no uncertain terms, does any part of Sudbury remind anyone – even in a drugged or drunken state – of Paris.

However, my lake-filled, mid-sized hometown does have a wide variety of retail, tourist, educational and other amenities that most tiny isolated mining towns do not and it is located only 400 km north of Canada’s largest city, Toronto.

A few years ago, a colleague who moved from Red Lake to Sudbury almost considered herself in “mining heaven” with the abundance of amenities not found in that tiny gold mining centre.

In addition to the Ontario government’s new differentiation and international student outreach policies, there are many other reasons why all post-secondary mining programs should be relocated to Sudbury’s Laurentian University.

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Accent: Laurentian as ‘Harvard of Hardrock Mining’ – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – February 7, 2015)

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

Note: This is the first of two parts.

Laurentian University economics professor David Robinson, who ran for the Green Party in Sudbury’s provincial byelection on Thursday, has done a terrific job in highlighting mining issues and his plans to ensure that Sudbury continues to become Ontario’s centre of mining excellence.

It’s a refreshing policy approach that often gets overlooked by other politicians, but in fairness to Glenn Thibeault and even Premier Kathleen Wynne, both have also mentioned — but not with the same passion as Robinson — and promoted Sudbury’s mining sector.

However, as with many issues related to Premier Wynne and the mining sector — including the Ring of Fire — there seems to be more “political talk” and very “little solid walk.” Actually, dodging and spinning would be a better description of her government’s mining policy in general.

If Premier Wynne is truly serious about promoting and establishing Sudbury as a centre of mining excellence, then she must merge and relocate all of Ontario’s university mining programs to Laurentian and significantly expand and establish a “Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining” with a mandate to educate the next generation of miners in Canada and from around the world.

With this consolidation, not only would the premier solidify Sudbury’s premier role in underground mining, supply and services, mining education and research in Canada, she would also dovetail with current policy proposals from her own Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities that are trying to cut duplication in the university sector and increase the number of international students attending the province’s universities.

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Attention Premier Wynne: Turn Laurentian Into Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining – by Stan Sudol (January 30, 2015)

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, mining columnist and owner/editor of www.republicofmining.com  He can be reached at stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

This essay was also published in the Sudbury Star in two parts:

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/02/07/accent-laurentian-as-harvard-of-hardrock-mining-2

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/02/09/sudbury-needs-premier-needs-to-act-boldly

Sudbury Byelection

Laurentian University economics professor David Robinson, who is running for the Green Party in the current municipal by-election, has done a terrific job in highlighting mining issues and his plans to ensure that Sudbury continues to become Ontario’s centre of mining excellence.

It’s a refreshing policy approach that often gets overlooked by other politicians but in fairness to Glen Thibeault and even Premier Wynne, both have also mentioned – but not with the same passion as David Robinson – and promoted Sudbury’s mining sector.

However, as with many issues related to Premier Wynne and the mining sector – including the Ring of Fire – there seems to be more “political talk” and very “little solid walk”, actually dodging and spinning would be a better description of her government’s mining policy in general.

If Premier Wynne is truly serious about promoting and establishing Sudbury as a centre of mining excellence, than she must merge and relocate all of Ontario’s university mining programs to Laurentian and significantly expand and establish a “Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining” with a mandate to educate the next generation of miners in Canada and from around the world.

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Make Sudbury mining centre: Robinson – by Staff (Sudbury Star – January 24, 2015)

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

Green Party candidate David Robinson says Sudbury is strategically positioned to reap the benefits of developing northwestern Ontario’s Ring of Fire, as long as every effort is made to turn Sudbury into a global centre for mining excellence.

Local leadership in developing meaningful partnerships with business, industry, the education sector and higher orders of government are key to Robinson’s plan. “My plan for Northern Ontario puts Sudbury front and centre on a global stage, and will make Sudbury the staging area for developing the Ring of Fire,” Robinson said in a release.

“My plan starts with giving Northern communities the incentive and the tools that they need to seize control of their own destinies. For too long, Sudbury and other Northern communities have had to go cap in hand to Toronto, rather than being able to quickly seize local ideas and initiatives.”

Robinson said Sudbury’s local potential can be unlocked by building partnerships with job-creators like Laurentian University and Sudbury’s vigorous mining supply sector. Vacant land in the city’s downtown is strategically located to host new mining supply startups ready to capitalize on developing the Ring of Fire.

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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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PRESS RELEASE: First Nickel Restructures the Lockerby Mine, Reducing Costs and Ensuring Continued Economic Viability

TORONTO, ONTARIO, Jan 12, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) — First Nickel Inc. (“First Nickel”, “FNI” or the “Company”) (FNI) has announced that the Lockerby nickel/copper mine, located in the Sudbury basin in Ontario, is being restructured in order to reduce costs, increase exploration and extend mine life.

Background

The Lockerby Mine Project Technical Report dated August 2, 2012, available on SEDAR.com, envisaged mining from the 6,500-foot level to the 7,000-foot level. In 2013, the Company disclosed that, as a result of low nickel prices, ramp development below the 6800 level would be suspended. The Company has also said that if a decision was not made to restart ramp development, Lockerby would cease mining operations in 2015.

In December 2014, the Company concluded that, unless costs could be substantially reduced, developing the mine below the 6800 level would be uneconomic based on the current cost structure.

Thomas M. Boehlert, President & Chief Executive Officer, commented: “The employees at Lockerby have done a remarkable job in recent months to improve performance at the mine, with nickel production in the second half of 2014 improving significantly compared to the first half. However, the combination of persistently low nickel prices and our underlying cost structure has had a negative impact on our ability to generate the funds required to continue development of the mine.”

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