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Third party probes [Timmins mine] blast – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – July 24, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – It could take as long as week for Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines (PGM) to find out what went wrong Tuesday when a blast threw a piece of rock into the company’s parking lot at the old Hollinger Mine building.

PGM Timmins mine general manager Marc Lauzier revealed Wednesday that a third-party consultant is being brought in to try to figure how the rock escaped the blast zone during a routine blast Tuesday morning at the Hollinger open pit.

“We had a small blast of about 13,500 tonnes or so, near surface. A piece of flyrock was expunged from the blast and landed in the parking lot on one our employee vehicles,” Lauzier explained.

“Immediately we suspended all blasting activities. Of course public safety is our No. 1 concern, so I want to understand what caused a piece of rock to land in the parking lot and what is going to be done to prevent this in the future.”

The consultant will be reviewing blasting procedures and video of the incident, since Goldcorp makes a video record of every blast at the new mine. This is the first known incident involving flyrock landing outside the mining zone since the first blast at the Hollinger pit occurred back in February.

“So until I get the results of that investigation and we are comfortable that we can blast without this reoccurring, we won’t be blasting,” Lauzier said. “And so it will take about a week to do the investigation properly.”

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Development corp seeking investment for Timmins – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – July 10, 2014)

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 yours is a company that serves the mining industry — whether it manufactures equipment components or analyzes drill core — Timmins wants you.

Through a new regional mining supply and industrial mineral investment attraction project, the Timmins Economic Development Corp. (TEDC) is actively trying to recruit more companies to set up shop in the city.

Timmins and the Abitibi Greenstone Belt region is still one of premier mining areas in Canada, with new mineral deposits being discovered all the time, said Fred Gibbons, chair of the TEDC’s board of directors.

The TEDC already assists companies trying to bring their mine into production — helping to work through environmental assessments and other permitting — and now the organization wants to take that one step further by helping companies that offer supporting services to establish a permanent presence in the city.

“What we’re seeing is that the future looks very bright,” Gibbons said. “Although we have a 100-year history in serving the mining industry in Timmins, we know that there are some gaps with respect to the services that mines are going to require and a level of expertise.”

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NEWS RELEASE: Acknowledging Glencore’s environmental excellence in Timmins

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.

Congratulations to Glencore’s Kidd Operations in Timmins for earning the 2014 Tom Peters Memorial Reclamation Award. This environmental honour was presented in Peterborough earlier this month at the seventh annual Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium and Field Trip, which is jointly organized by the Canadian Land Reclamation Association and the Ontario Mining Association.

David Yaschyshyn, Superintendent of Environment at Kidd Operations, was on hand to accept the trophy. The specific project being recognized was for the closure plan design and reclamation of the Kidd jarosite pond area and Three Nations Creek. The jarosite (iron sulphate mud produced from zinc refining) pond, or landfill facility, was built in 1971 and it operated from 1972 until operations ceased in 2010. Rehabilitation activities included the removal of soils, re-vegetation and a remedial action plan for the aquatic ecosystem in Three Nations Creek.

Tom Peters was a pioneer in the field of mine reclamation and a founding member of the CLRA, which was established in 1975. Mr. Peters died in 2007. He enjoyed a lengthy and successful career at Vale’s predecessor company Inco where he led the company’s tailings re-vegetation and land reclamation programs. He played a major role in the re-greening of Sudbury and was awarded a honourary degree from Laurentian University in recognition of that significant contribution.

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HISTORY: Gold rush sparked big headlines – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – June 13, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

TIMMINS – About 105 years ago this month, the Great Porcupine Gold Rush took off in force. People had been looking for gold in the area as early as 1905, and a mini-rush around the Night Hawk waterway got people all riled up in 1907-08. However, it wasn’t until a few spectacular finds in the spring of 1909 in and around the Porcupine region that ears perked up and men got serious.

Today, I give you a few newspaper excerpts from the Cobalt Nugget, in celebration of those finds so many years ago. Those reporters and letter writers knew how to tell a great story. After all, I think we need to start celebrating the Porcupine Gold Rush. It is quite possibly the best kept secret in Canada. so let’s have a look at what they were saying back then that got their knickers all in a knot!

Headline: “Free Gold Over Big Area in Porcupine – Sam Wilson Describes What He Saw on Bannerman Claim – Quartz Vein a Mile Long and Four Feet Wide!!!” (Cobalt Nugget – Porcupine Lake, Nov. 1, 1909 – excerpt from the third letter of Sam Wilson, Cobalt Prospector to his partner Bob Andrews).

“Dear Bub – I’ve been looking at free gold so much I am just dazzled. They have it all through this country. They are finding it through Whitney and Tisdale, and there are great reports from the Reserve.

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Mine rescue captain breaking barriers – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – June 4, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – It wasn’t until the wives of a competing mine rescue team gathered around Lynne Bouchard to shake her hand that the significance of her achievement really sunk in.

Bouchard, who works for St. Andrew Goldfields in Black River-Matheson, is the first female captain to lead a mine rescue team to the provincials. The provincial competition, which kicks off Thursday, is being held this year at the Dome Mine in Timmins.

“It really sunk in when all the wives of the Kidd Creek team lined up to shake my hand and tell me how it was great and an inspiration to see a female step up to the plate like that,” the 26-year-old recalled from the district championships held in Timmins last month. “It was a very heart-felt moment.”

Bouchard will be leading St. Andrew Goldfields mine rescue team against Kidd Operations (Glencore) and the five other district teams competing in the provincials. St. Andrew is representing the Kirkland Lake district while the Kidd team is representing Timmins.

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[Timmins] Lake Shore Gold predicting a good year – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 31, 2014)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

A dramatic forty-dollar drop in the price of gold during Mine Expo week in Timmins no doubt sent a shudder through those in the local gold mining community in the past few days.

But gold mining executives, much like prospectors, remain an optimistic group. That was evident this week when Lake Shore Gold’s Mark Utting spoke at the opening of the Mine Expo.

Utting, the Vice President of Investor Relations for LSG, said 2014 is going to be a good year for his company here in Timmins. In a nutshell, company performance is improving, costs are down and Lake Shore is confident they will be finding more ore zones.

“Things are going extremely well for us,” said Utting. He said the multi-year construction phase for LSG is completed and the company is in full production mode.

“And that allowed us to significantly increase our production. Last year we did 135-thousand ounces. This year we will get a full year of full production so we will be close to 160 to 180 thousand ounces,” Utting said. He added that the company’s production cost for an ounce of gold is down and “well below a thousand dollars.”

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Rescue competition a great learning tool – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – May 23, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Ted Hanley has seen first-hand how training for mine rescue competitions has helped in real-life emergencies.

“Absolutely,” said Hanley, who is the team captain for mine rescue team at Kidd Operations (Glencore). “We’ve had several decades of very experienced competition-trained individuals here who have led teams to actual fires and actual emergencies underground … The more experience people receive in mine-rescue training, the better prepared you are for a real emergency.

“It builds confidence. I know competition training is a level above the normal training you receive, so the people who are involved in the competition are typically very capable leaders with the rest of the roster if there is an emergency.”

The team from Kidd Operations will be representing Timmins district when the Provincial Mine Rescue Team Competition is held here June 5 and 6. The mine rescue teams conduct a lot of training to prepare for the competition.

That is because there is an “unlimited” number of possible emergency scenarios the six-member team may have to respond to, said Hanley.

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Statues spruced up for Schumacher Homecoming – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – May 8, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The timing is perfect, with the Schumacher Homecoming reunion just around the corner. The refurbished statues of community founder Fred Schumacher and legendary prospector Sandy McIntyre were unveiled in the Schumacher parkette Thursday.

The Sandy McIntyre statue had been damaged and required a new hand. The Fred Schumacher statue had some holes and the brim of his hat was broken. Both are made of copper and received some shining up from the green oxidization that had built up.

There was also graffiti removed from the headframe-shaped monument at the entrance of the park and its plaque was cleaned up so the lettering is now more legible.

“Any time you are able to reintroduce pieces that speak to your culture and heritage, it is significant. This is who we are and what we’re all about,” said Guy Lamarche, manager of tourism, events and communications for the City of Timmins.

“There is a reunion underway here (scheduled during the May Run long weekend), so timing being what it is, it could not have been any better. I’m happy we were able to pull this off for those who are coming back home and for those who live here.”

Lamarche said organizers of the Homecoming are anticipating about 200 people.

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Mine Rescue district competitions on in Timmins – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 7, 2014)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The 2014 District Mine Rescue competitions are now on at the McIntyre Community Building in Timmins so that mine rescue teams from across Timmins and Kirkland Lake can hone their skills and win bragging rights.

For the Timmins District, the event will see teams from Lake Shore Gold, Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mine, Glencore Kidd Mine and Dumas Mining contractors competing against each other for the various trophies and awards for things such as best technician, best first aid, best performance on exams and best overall in responding to the mock disaster scenario.

Incidentally, the 2013 team from Kidd Mine is not only the local champion, but also has the provincial bragging rights, having won the All-Ontario mine rescue event held last June in Windsor, Ontario.

Kirkland Lake will also be represented at the event with teams representing SAS St. Andrew’s Goldfields, AuRico Gold (Young Davidson), Kirkland Lake Gold and Primero Mining Group (Brigus Gold).

It is expected that the disaster scenario exercise will be wrapped up early Friday afternoon, to give judges time to make their final assessments.

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‘Exciting years’ for Lake Shore Gold – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 25, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Dan Gagnon held a captive audience of local business owners as he talked about the prospects of Lake Shore Gold’s “continuous improvement and growth” filtering down to the community.

“I think we’ve had an exciting couple of years, definitely a breakthrough year for us in 2013,” said Gagnon, who is Lake Shore Gold’s senior vice-president of operations. “We saw a steady increase in production. We started generating free cash flow, so we’re now a business that can fund its own projects … We’ve basically gone from 85,000 ounces a year in 2012, to 135,000 in 2013, to 160,000 to 180,000 (anticipated this year).”

Gagnon was the keynote speaker at a Timmins Chamber of Commerce luncheon held Thursday at the Schumacher Lions Den.

Asked if there were opportunities for small local businesses to prosper from the growth in operations at Lake Shore Gold, Gagnon replied, “Definitely. In 2012, for example, we spent $130 million locally. That was 60% of our spending which was basically local with all the suppliers that you see off Algonquin Boulevard. There is a big push for us to support the local, then the Northern and then Ontario.”

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Fears looming hydro hike will hurt industry – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 25, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – It was denied at the time by Xstrata Copper. Yet many in the community continue to blame Ontario’s higher energy costs for the company’s decision that ultimately led to the Timmins smelter closing in 2010.

The fact there is a substantial hydro rate increase on horizon doesn’t bode well particularly in communities in Timmins that depend on resource-based industries which are traditionally high-energy users.

“For our industries, mining and forestry, because they are energy intensive, it’s a job killer,” said MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP – Timmins-James Bay), on the prospect of a rise in hydro rates. Phil Barton, a small business owner in Timmins and president of the city’s chamber of commerce, came close to echoing that view.

“I personally think one of the reasons we lost the met site was due to high energy costs and it is certainly detrimental to many of the other big users of power,” said Barton. “If they have to raise their costs because of energy, perhaps it makes them less competitive in the global marketplace. And that has a ripple effect throughout our whole region, probably more so than in many other regions.”

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Big ore find saved Timmins 50 years ago – by Jeff Labine (Timmins Daily Press – April 15, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Half a century ago, the Timmins economy faced possible collapse. The Hollinger gold mine, which had been operating since 1910, was on its last legs and there didn’t seem to be any suitable replacement to keep the economy flowing in the city.

Rumours started to spread about a possible ore discovery in the area, but few facts were known at the time. Texas Gulf Sulfur Company had made a discovery of a lifetime in November 1963 but the company kept that fact quiet for months.

The American-based company didn’t make the discovery public until April 16 1964. The Daily Press ran the news that the company had discovered more than 23 million tons of ore.

The Kidd Creek mine would become world-famous for its copper, zinc and silver deposits and also earn the distinction of being the deepest base metal mine in the world reaching depths as far down as 10,000 feet.

But trying to break that story was a difficult task for Gregory Reynolds, a reporter at the time for The Daily Press. He and a fellow reporter dogged miners and the higher-ups at Texas Gulf, trying to find someone who could confirm their suspicions that something big was going to happen.

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Top Ten Mining Events in Northern Ontario History – by Stan Sudol (March 22, 2014)

This column was also published on the Huffington Post – the “New York Times” of the web: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stan-sudol/ontario-mining_b_4885841.html

Klondike Versus Northern Ontario

For crying out loud, I continue to be astonished with our collective Canadian obsession over the Klondike Gold Rush while northern Ontario’s rich and vibrant mining history is completely ignored by the Toronto media establishment, especially the CBC.

Discovery Channel’s recent six-hour mini-series on the Klondike – vaguely based on Charlotte Gray’s book, “Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike – once again highlighted this glaring snub.

Unfairly, the Klondike did have the benefit of terrific public relations due to famous writers like Jack London, Robert W. Service and Pierre Berton, but I still don’t understand how this brief mining boom continues to dominate the “historical oxygen” in our national psyche.

At its peak, the Klondike only lasted a few years – 1896-1899 – and produced about 12.5 million ounces of gold. And unlike the California gold rush that created one of the largest and richest states in the union, the entire Yukon Territory’s population today is about 36,000. Contrast that with booming Timmins with 45,000 hardy souls who have dug out of the ground about 68 million ounces and counting of the precious metal, since the Porcupine Gold rush of 1909.

It’s enough to make to make Benny Hollinger, Jack Wilson and Sandy MacIntyre – the founders of this extraordinary deposit – spin in their collective graves!

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Trust, compromise required to resolve overlapping territory [Wabun Tribal Council] – by Shawn Batise (Onotassiniik Magazine – Spring 2014)

 http://onotassiniik.com/

The following is from a presentation by Shawn Batise at the 2013 Mining Ready Summit in Timmins, hosted by Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund. Batise is executive director of Wabun Tribal Council, which has six member First Nations: Beaverhouse, Brunswick House, Chapleau Ojibwe, Flying Post, Matechewan, and Mattagami.

I’ve been involved with Wabun Tribal Council since it started in 1990. The Wabun communities are in northeastern Ontario, all within about a two-hour drive of Timmins. Their traditional territories kind of intersect here in Timmins.

It’s the busiest area in the province in terms of mining exploration and development, and mining has become top of mind in most of the communities of our tribal council. With our participation in resource development over the past five to seven years, I’ve never seen more growth in the communities in terms of wealth, health, better jobs … being economically well off.

A large part of it is because of what we’ve been able to do in the tribal council area, with the help of the First Nations, obviously, in negotiating agreements around mining development. Things have really taken off. We’ve created a number of businesses servicing the industry that have been very successful.

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Primero takes over Black For mine, mill [Timmins] – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – March 6, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Black Fox mine employees began meeting with their new owners this week.

On Wednesday, Primero Mining Corp. completed a deal to acquire all assets of Brigus Gold including the Black Fox mine and mill located in Black River-Matheson, as well as the adjacent Grey Fox mine property. The agreement was initially announced in December.

“The company was created about three-and-a-half years ago,” said Joseph Conway, Primero president and chief executive, who was at the Days Inn in Timmins to meet with mine staff. “It was through a buyout of an asset from Goldcorp in Mexico. It was a producing mine and it was running at 90,000 ounces a year but it was under-capitalized and since then we’ve been reinvesting back into that operation and are now producing about 160,000 ounces a year.”

While Primero plans to continue that trend of investing in its assets, Conway admitted they will be a little less bullish about bringing Grey Fox into production. The previous owner, Brigus Gold, had talked last year of pulling Grey Fox into production by the first half of 2015.

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