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Mine find drenched in prehistory – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – May 27, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Timmins residents got the chance to see what discovery here has scientists worldwide all abuzz. It is billion-year-old water found 2.4 kilometres underground within the Kidd Mine that has caused such a stir.

A sample of it was exhibited in a jar at Timmins Square Saturday as part of Glencore-Xstrata Kidd Operations’ display for Mining Week.

In 2011, while drilling at the most extreme levels of the Kidd Mine, geologists discovered what is estimated to be billion-year-old water, which attracted attention from national media, scientists and NASA.

“We are looking at a sample of water that was collected at the 8,000 level,” said Pete Calloway, chief geologist for Kidd Mine. “The general thought right now is that this is extremely old water. We aren’t sure how old quite yet, we are leaving it up to the professors at the University of Toronto to make that determination.”

Calloway can draw his own conclusions about the nature of the water, but he’ll let the brains at the university draw the official conclusions. “What we believe is that this water has been trapped within the fractures of the mine and it could be as old as the mine, (mineral formation) which is 2.7 billion years old,” said Calloway. “As we do our work underground and drill the ore body to find out things like grade, tonnage and so on, so that we can plan the mine around the drill holes, we were coming into micro fractures and different faults throughout the mine which in turn liberated the water into the drill hole.”

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Layoffs at Lake Shore Gold [in Timmins] – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – May 25, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Despite laying off approximately 35 employees on Friday, Lake Shore Gold Corp. remains confident in its main commodity.

“We have a lot of confidence in the future of gold and we expect the price to go back up,” said Mark Utting, Lake Shore Gold’s vice-president, investor relations. “You just have to manage your business to be successful in the current price environment.”

The company employed “about 560” workers prior to Friday’s cuts. With localized operations in the region including the Timmins West Mine, the Bell Creek Mine, the Fenn-Gib Project and a rapidly expanding mill site, a large majority of the company’s employees are Timmins residents.

“You never want to do this, and it’s not something you do lightly,” said Utting. “But if you look at our company, we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve grown from 10 employees in 2007 to over 500 employees, even after these reductions today.

“The gold price is down over $250 an ounce so far this year, and we’re a rapidly growing company that’s currently in the heaviest part of its capital spending period. We’re investing a lot of capital in Timmins and as a company like that, we have to be responsive to changes in market conditions.

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World’s oldest flowing water found deep in Timmins mine – by CBC News (May 15, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/thunderbay/

Water as much as 2.64 billion years old has chemistry that could support life

Water found in a deep, isolated reservoir in Timmins, Ont., has been trapped there for 1.5 billion to 2.64 billion years — since around the time the first multicellular life arose on the planet — Canadian and British scientists say.

The water pouring out of boreholes 2.4 kilometres below the surface in the northern Ontario copper and zinc mine is older than any other free-flowing water ever discovered. It is rich in dissolved gases such as hydrogen and methane that could theoretically provide support for microbial life, the researchers report in a paper published Wednesday online in the journal Nature.

“What we can be sure of is that we have identified a way in which planets can create and preserve an environment friendly to microbial life for billions of years,” said a statement from Greg Holland, the Lancaster University geochemist who is the lead author of the study.

“This is regardless of how inhospitable the surface might be, opening up the possibility of similar environments in the subsurface of Mars.”

His Canadian co-authors included Barbara Sherwood Lollar and Georges Lacrampe-Couloume at the University of Toronto; Greg Slater at McMaster University in Hamilton; and Long Li, who is currently an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, but worked on the project while at the University of Toronto.

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Xstrata Kidd Operations wins the 2013 Timmins District Mine Rescue competition – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 10, 2013)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The Mine Rescue Team from Xstrata Copper Kidd Operations has won the Timmins District Ontario Mine Rescue competition.

The winning team beat out a roster of four teams that included defending 2012 champions Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines, Lake Shore Gold and Dumas mining contractors in the competition that was held this week at the Whitney Arena. The Kirkland Lake district contest was also held in Timmins and it produced a separate winning team.

The winning Xstrata team was captained by Jason Leger and included team members Shawn Rideout, Danny Morin, Ted Hanley, Guy Champagne, Marc Villars and Stewart Labine.

This is the fourth time Xstrata has won the honours since 2007. Xstrata and Goldcorp have been seesawing back and forth with the top honours in recent years.

The annual event is held to let the mine rescuers from local mining companies pit their skills against each other for local bragging rights, and also for the right to represent Timmins at the all Ontario mine rescue competition, which will be held in June in Windsor, Ontario. This will include the district winners from Red Lake, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Marathon, Goderich and Kirkland Lake.

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Ontario Mine Rescue district competition on in Timmins – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – May 7, 2013)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The annual mine rescue competitions for the Timmins District and also the Kirkland Lake District, are taking place this week in Timmins at the Whitney Arena. The Timmins event will feature a local mine contracting company fielding a competition team for the first time.

The events are held each year in mining districts across the province to let mine rescue teams hone their skills, to ensure a high level of standardized training and to give winning teams the bragging rights for another year.

Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines is the current winning team in Timmins, having won the honours in the 2012 competition. Kirkland Lake Gold won the honours for its district, also at the 2012 competition.

The 2013 event began Monday morning with the technicians competition. Each mine rescue team has a technician who is expected to troubleshoot any problems that arise with the specialized equipment the teams use when they carry out their work in hostile underground situations.

The current defending champ for that role is Erik Barr of Goldcorp who last spring won the Timmins District technician’s trophy for the third year in a row. Barr also won the all-Ontario title for best technician.

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Lake Shore Gold readies for growth – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – May 10, 2013)

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.

Lake Shore Gold in Timmins is expecting 2013 to be a breakout year. “We are on track now to really transition from junior exploration company to a producer,” said president and CEO Tony Makuch at a presentation in April. He was addressing an audience of more than 150 at a luncheon put on by the Canadian Institute of Mining’s (CIM) Northern Gateway Branch in North Bay.

“We built everything from scratch, starting with greenfield discoveries. We have raised and invested close to $650 million since 2008. And, we are building a mine. We have had a lot of challenges but some big successes,” he said.

With 525 employees, and about 200 contractors, the company operates the Timmins West Mine, which is about 20 kilometres west of Timmins; the Bell Creek Mine, about 20 kilometres northeast of the city; and the Bell Creek mill. The Fenn-Gibb Project, 60 kilometres east of Timmins, has the potential to become an open-pit operation.

“Since 2008 we have discovered seven million ounces. Our challenge is not just to discover, but to show we are profitable. We know there is still a lot of gold there and we can find it, but we have to demonstrate how to turn it into a profitable business,” he said.

Last year, the company met its guidance, achieved a lot of development success, mined and processed 720,000 tons of ore, developed more than 2,000 metres of mine ramps and produced 86,000 ounces of gold.

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Work-related fatalities provide hard lessons in safety – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Across Canada, and certainly in the mining heartlands of Northern Ontario, people solemnly recognized the National Day of Mourning on Sunday.

In Ontario alone, there were 298 work-related fatalities in 2012. More than 238,000 claims were made by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) on behalf of sick, injured or deceased workers.

In the City with a Heart of Gold, the Timmins and District Labour Council organized a short but emotional ceremony for the public at the Miner’s Memorial, located in the regal shadow of the McIntyre Mine.

Tears were shed for those lost. Many of those present had been affected by the loss of family members or friends due to mine-related accidents or illnesses. There was also a great show of pride for how far workplace safety and training has come, even from just a few years ago.

Carole Lamoureux-Chaylt is an advocate for the Office of the Worker Adviser. She spoke at the Day of Mourning ceremony in Timmins on Sunday.

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Documentary examines Del Villano [1956-59] bear hunt – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – April 22, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Timmins is a community that is built upon stories of heroism, bravery, ingenuity and downright strangeness.

From Sandy McIntyre to Maggie Buffalo, the snippets of Timmins past are wide spread and deeply rooted. But none of the stories transcended the borders of the community and the country quite like the tale of one mayor and his determination to see the Queen’s guard look their best marching in front of Buckingham Palace.

Leo Del Villano served as Mayor of Timmins for many years. Between 1956 and 1959 he gained international fame for having organized the largest bear hunt in Ontario’s history.

“I am looking at an overall perspective on Black Bear hunting and management in Ontario and as I had been going through a number of newspaper articles, I stumbled across Leo Del Villano’s story,” said Michael Commito, a PhD candidate from the Department of History at McMaster University.

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Angus disappointed with lack of [Ring of Fire railroad] plan – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 11, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Members of the federal opposition were taking shots at a government “pipe-dream” this week – and for once it had nothing to do with oil sands.

MP Charlie Angus (NDP–Timmins-James Bay) said he was upset to look through the federal budget and see only cuts to rail service across the country.

He was particularly upset about the lack of mention of the James Bay Port Authority. The idea of a central, federally owned rail and infrastructure corporation — potentially located in the Moosonee region — was the source of much discussion within Northern municipalities, the federal government, and worker’s unions alike over the past year.

“I’m shocked,” Angus said. “I looked through the budget and there’s really no plan for Northern Ontario. One of the big promises being floated was to develop this James Bay Port Authority, and it was being proposed as a way of helping save Northern rail infrastructure. So what happened, where is it?”

On the heels of the provincial Liberals’ decision to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) in March 2012, followed by the cancellation of the Northland passenger train service in September 2012, there was uproar in Northern Ontario about the perceived lack of transparency and consultation.

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Angus disappointed with lack of plan – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 11, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Members of the federal opposition were taking shots at a government “pipe-dream” this week – and for once it had nothing to do with oil sands.

MP Charlie Angus (NDP–Timmins-James Bay) said he was upset to look through the federal budget and see only cuts to rail service across the country.

He was particularly upset about the lack of mention of the James Bay Port Authority. The idea of a central, federally owned rail and infrastructure corporation — potentially located in the Moosonee region — was the source of much discussion within Northern municipalities, the federal government, and worker’s unions alike over the past year.

“I’m shocked,” Angus said. “I looked through the budget and there’s really no plan for Northern Ontario. One of the big promises being floated was to develop this James Bay Port Authority, and it was being proposed as a way of helping save Northern rail infrastructure. So what happened, where is it?”

On the heels of the provincial Liberals’ decision to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) in March 2012, followed by the cancellation of the Northland passenger train service in September 2012, there was uproar in Northern Ontario about the perceived lack of transparency and consultation.

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Tragic lesson in [mine] safety – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 5, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – By sharing her family’s pain, Lisa Kadosa hopes others can learn from it and avoid a similar tragedy. Kadosa’s father was killed in a mining accident in Sudbury seven years ago. She believes workplace fatalities are frequently the result of avoidable shortcuts.

“We do it all the time. We skip little steps because we think we are invincible. I think by seeing that this does happen, and having a real person up there with tears in their eyes because they’re having to deal with this, can make people really think the next time they’re going to overlook a step.”

Kadosa was one of the keynote speakers at the third-annual Health and Safety Conference put on by the Timmins Regional Labour-Management Joint Health & Safety Committee at the Timmins Inn & Suites Thursday.

Since her father’s death, Kadosa has travelled across country, frequently invited to speak at workplace safety conferences. Kadosa’s father, Robert Nesbitt, was killed at the 2,600 level underground at the Vale Inco Stobie Mine in 2006.

What made his death particularly perplexing was the fact it was the result of what was then a common practice. “Nobody expected a common practice to kill somebody who had been doing the same job for 37 years,” she said.

“There is a sling you use to attach a portable stand to the bucket in a scoop when you transport it from your different sites. That sling is to be removed before you use it.

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Tories, NDP fighting over FedNor – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 3, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A war of words being waged over the federal government’s plan to support economic development in Northern Ontario.

Due to a lack of information regarding the 2013 budget, that’s about all we know. On Tuesday, the NDP sent out a press release denouncing the ruling Conservatives for “slashing economic development investment in Northern Ontario.”

It stated that FedNor (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario) was facing cuts in the 2013 budget – from $73 million in 2012 to $60.3 million by 2014.

With the government seeking ways to balance the federal budget, MP Charlie Angus (NDP – Timmins-James Bay) said, “There is no real rationalization for trying to get us out of a slow economy by cutting an economic investment.

“FedNor is a major stimulus for getting new business starts, for getting companies re-tooled, so it pays itself off because it’s a driver of the economy. For the Conservatives to be taking a serious whack at economic development investment in the North, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Angus said funding from FedNor is essential to allowing businesses in Northern Ontario to compete with others based in more opportune locations and regions.

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Stakeholder talks open on ONTC – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – March 26, 2013)

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.

Minister of Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle delivers the government’s message on the ONTC to the media, March 25 in North Bay, while members of his special advisory committee look on.
A year and two days later after the provincial government’s controversial decision to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), regional stakeholders were finally given a chance to provide input.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle met with a new ONTC advisory committee of political, industry and First Nations representatives in North Bay, March 25.

“All the members have provided ideas to help the government’s decision on the ONTC divestment and are helping us move to a more sustainable telecommunications and transportation system for the North,” he said. “This is clearly a very important issue here for us, and I deeply value the opinions, viewpoints and the experience of all the committee members.”

On March 23, 2012, Liberal MPP Rick Bartolucci, who was then minister of Northern Development and Mines, announced the surprise divestment of the North Bay-headquartered Crown agency from his home riding in Sudbury. It caused an uproar from unionized workers and community leaders across northeastern Ontario.

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ONTC talks on track – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – March 26, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Just a few minutes out a first meeting regarding the future and privatization of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren was being optimistic about the talks.

Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Michael Gravelle, met with various industry players and municipal leaders in North Bay on Monday. Talks surrounded on involving the North in the process that has seen the ONTC become available for sale to private investors.

“We had a very open dialogue, he took a lot of questions,” said Laughren about Monday’s discussions with Gravelle. “A lot of people there wanted to know why they’re there and what the fit is.

“We don’t want to meet today, and four months from now find out that something else is happening here. If we’re going to be part of this committee, then this committee has to be one that listens, and there’s got to be some reaction to some of the ideas and suggestions that are being brought up by this advisory group, and he was all good with all of that.”

Since the Liberal government announced plans to privatize the various factions of ONTV service in March 2012, passenger rail service to the North has been discontinued.

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Xstrata hoping to keep the Kidd deep mine running beyond 2020 – by Len Gilles (Timmins Times – March 22, 2013)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

The Xstrata Kidd Mine in Timmins has a life expectancy of perhaps another eight years, but everything is being done to make the mine run as efficiently, as sunstainably and as profitably as possible.

And from that, there is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, another few years of mine life might be found.

That was part of the message Thursday from Xstrata Copper Kidd Operations general manager Tom Semadeni who was the guest speaker at the Timmins Chamber of Commerce luncheon event at the Dante Club.

He said the Kidd mine is still quite large, still quite rich and still expensive to run. The Kidd Mine is not only the deepest mine in Canada, it is the deepest base metal mine in the world at more than 9600 feet down.

Semadeni said that the copper, zinc and silver ore at Kidd is very rich. On the other side of the coin, because the mine is now so deep, everything involved in running the mine is more expensive.

It takes longer for the miners to get from surface down to the work areas. It takes longer to ship equipment and materials from surface to the lower levels. Ventilation and the cost of moving fresh air into the mine and removing stale air and blasting gases is significantly higher. And it takes longer to bring the ore to surface.

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