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Pollution Prevention Avoids Future Problems – (Digging Through the Sudbury Soils Study) – By Bill Bradley

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Designing Out Trouble

(Final instalment of a four-part series) Sudbury Soils Study

Both Vale Inco and Xstrata have committed to being part of the solution and not the problem. They said that in a joint news release on May 13 after the release of the Sudbury Soil Study Human Risk Assessment.

The first necessity is better information about what emissions, such as dust, are being released.

Before the Sudbury Soils Study, the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE) conducted monitoring of air emissions at Nickel Street in Copper Cliff and Lisgar Street in Sudbury. In 2003, both companies agreed to fund an expanded air monitoring program, including samples of particulate matter (PM10) which is thought to be more relevant for inhalation into a persons’ lungs. In 10 locations, 20 monitors were set up. That data was used in the Sudbury Soil Study.

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Here’s What’s Wrong With Municipal Mining Revenue in Ontario – Michael Atkins

A month or so ago, a special task force for the Greater City of Sudbury called the Advisory Panel on Municipal Mining Revenues presented their recommendations to the city.

The committee was struck to review the astonishing inequities between the amount of mining tax money skimmed off the top by the provincial and federal governments, as opposed to the falling revenue for the city. This is not a new idea. The panel puts it in perspective.

In 1964, the mayor of Sudbury, at the time, struck a committee to investigate Sudbury’s financial problems and came up with a report entitled “1964; Year of the Dilemma.” The major theme was the lack of assessment available to the city from the mining industry.

In 1967,  the Ontario Committee on Taxation went at it with a draft proposal that Sudbury would receive even less money.

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Vale Inco President and Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira on Sustainability

Vale Inco President and CEO Murilo FerreiraThe following excerpt by Vale Inco President and Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira is from the Vale Inco sustainability report released last summer. The full report is available at: Toward Sustainability

TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY – Murilo Ferreira

At CVRD Inco, we believe that our journey toward sustainability involves operating in a responsible manner to our employees and other stakeholders, the natural environment and the communities where we operate.

As a responsible employer, we are committed to treating our employees with dignity and respect, providing opportunities for career development and fulfillment, and always placing safety above all else. In the coming year, we will continue to work diligently as we strive to integrate the people, cultures, policies and guidelines of the former Inco with those of our parent company CVRD.

The year 2006 saw significant accomplishments in safety. For instance, year on-year we achieved an eight per cent reduction in disabling injury frequency worldwide in 2006.

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Vale Inco, President, Ontario Operations – Sudbury Speech – Fred Stanford

Fred Stanford, President, Vale Inco Ontario Operations• Thank you, and good afternoon everyone. It’s been a little while since I spoke to the Chamber, so it’s a pleasure to be here.

• Actually it’s been almost a year to the day since Murilo Ferreira, Vale Inco’s President and CEO, first came to Sudbury to speak to this audience. This was shortly after CVRD completed its acquisition of Inco.

• The theme of his speech was “Together, We are Better” – and I’m sure some of you may have been skeptical.

• He also said the acquisition wouldn’t change things much in Sudbury…but I might argue – since then, things have changed…and for the better.

• What an incredible year we just had at our Sudbury operations:

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Fred Stanford – Vale Inco – An Introduction

Fred Stanford is President, Ontario Operations at Vale Inco Stanford joined Vale Inco’s Industrial Engineering Department in 1981 upon graduation from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. In 1985, he moved into operating supervision roles in various mines, advancing to the position of Creighton Mine Superintendent in 1991.  In 1996, he moved to Clarabelle Mill as …

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Another Rumble in the Nickel Jungle? -Stan Sudol

Stan Sudol - Executive Speech Writer and Mining ColumnistWith such turmoil on global stock exchanges, one might wonder if Xstrata CEO Mick Davis and Vale CEO Roger Agnelli are trying to perform their proposed merger/takeover – difficult enough at the best of times – on the deck of a financial Titanic.

On Monday, many stock exchanges around the world witnessed the worst single day decline since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The TSX saw $90 billion evaporate while European exchanges wiped out $300 billion. In total, trillions of dollars in investment value were lost. The U.S. exchanges were closed for a holiday.

The “American contagion” as many are calling this stock market slaughter – due to the U.S. subprime mortgage fiasco and collapsing property values – continued Tuesday morning around the world including American exchanges.

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