Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.
After decades in the mining game, Goldcorp Inc. has finally figured out a way for its worker bees to make “liquid gold.” The enterprising environmental team at the Canadian company’s subsidiary in Timmins has transformed an old mine tailings property into a real hive of activity, where bees make honey amid the tall grass and flowering vegetation that until recently was a barren wasteland.
The Vancouver-based mining giant inherited the mined-out land as part of its purchase of a massive property known as Porcupine Gold Mines (PGM) in the northern Ontario city back in 2006.
The 58 hectares called the Coniaurum (which is Latin for constant gold) was mined for nearly 50 years and then abruptly abandoned in 1961 following a serious storm that breached tailings containment dams and caused discharge problems. Back then the industry was an unregulated wild west where miners would dig in and then just duck out when they were done.
Enter Goldcorp and modern day mining. Coniaurum is one of 20 burnt out mines amid its PGM operations and the first to be renewed as a wildlife habitat and rolling green field — and also an experimental ground on how to resurrect the rest of these eyesores.