Pro-asbestos advocacy group shuts its doors – by Robert Hiltz (Postmedia News – April 30, 2012)

http://www.canada.com/index.html

A decades-old pro-asbestos lobby group, currently funded by the Quebec government, will be shutting its doors after notifying the federal government of its plan to dissolve.

The Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute issued the notice in the Canada Gazette — the government’s official publication for announcing new laws and other public information. The institute, first formed in 1984, promotes the safe use of chrysotile asbestos on behalf of Canada’s asbestos mining industry.

NDP MP Pat Martin — a longtime critic of the asbestos industry and former miner himself — said the closing of the institute signals the “death knell” of asbestos mining in Canada.

“I see it as a real tipping point in the movement to get Canada out of the asbestos industry,” Martin said. “It’s just another demonstration of the death rattle of the asbestos industry in this country.”

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India Struggles to Deliver Enough Power [coal shortages]- by Vikas Bajaj (New York Times – April 19, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

NELLORE, India — India has long struggled to provide enough electricity to light its homes and power its industry around the clock. In recent years, the government and private sector sought to change that by building scores of new power plants.

But that campaign is now running into difficulties because the country cannot get enough fuel — principally coal — to run the plants. Clumsy policies, poor management and environmental concerns have hampered the country’s efforts to dig up fuel fast enough to keep up with its growing need for power.

A complex system of subsidies and price controls has limited investment, particularly in resources like coal and natural gas. It has also created anomalies, like retail electricity prices that are lower than the cost of producing power, which lead to big losses at state-owned utilities. An unsettled debate about how much of its forests India should turn over to mining has also limited coal production.

The power sector’s problems have substantially contributed to a second year of slowing economic growth in India, to an estimated 7 percent this year, from nearly 10 percent in 2010. Businesses report that more frequent blackouts have forced them to lower production and spend significantly more on diesel fuel to run backup generators.

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Give Sudbury [Ring of Fire] smelter, redefine Crown land – by Reino L. Viitala (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – April 30, 2012)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario. This commentary came from the Chronicle-Journal’s Letters to the Editor section.

Mining guidelines for Northwestern Ontario should include important conditions for development of environmentally sensitive areas — not simply the ambitions of companies, politicians and native leaders.

 For example, why do we want a smelter and slag dump in the Ring of Fire project area? Worst possible choice. It would pollute the entire Northwestern region. Our rainfall is associated with the Hudson Bay moisture system, therefore any air-borne pollutants will affect our rainfall and further acidify it. We are the cleanest climactic region in Ontario and a jewel for the entire world to enjoy. Why risk this with a smelter and a slag dump?

 Secondly, open-pit mining will drain wetlands in that area. Only underground mining should be permitted. Otherwise, the sensitive hydrological balance between the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the Lake Nipigon Basin will be affected. The Ring of Fire mining companies are on the right track to ship the ores to Falconbridge for smelting.

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Our world’s not coasting on empty after all [mineral shortages] – by Neil Reynolds (Globe and Mail – April 30, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Published 40 years ago, the Club of Rome’s cataclysmic environmental bestseller The Limits to Growth heralded the imminent end of human progress. Written by five Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, the book asserted – with relentlessly Malthusian logic – that the world was heading toward global economic collapse. For many people, the assertion made sense. For many people, it still does. An ever-rising world population must inexorably deplete the world’s finite resources. Doesn’t it?

In a retrospective analysis, U.S. economist Charles Kenny, senior fellow with the Washington-based Center for Global Development, says the world isn’t coasting on empty. Quite the contrary, he says. “The biggest concern isn’t that the planet is running out of resources – it’s having too many for the planet’s own good.”

According to The Limits of Growth, the world was already – in 1972 – approaching Peak Gold, “the date when global [gold] production was to reach its supposed maximum, afterward and evermore to decline as dwindling reserves were tapped out.”

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Sydney tar ponds revitalization gives Nova Scotia community new lease on life – by Kenyon Wallace (Toronto Star – April 30, 2012)

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.

Sid Slavin can barely recognize the spot where he spent 37 years toiling in the hot, smelly furnaces of one of Canada’s largest steel plants.

Where thousands of workers once forged much of Canada’s rails, rivets, bolts, nails and wire at the steel plant and coke ovens that provided the area with an economic lifeline for nearly 100 years, only grassy fields and a monument to those who lost their lives working at the plant remain.

The dramatic transformation is the culmination of a 10-year plan to clean up the former site of the Sydney tar ponds, an industrial wasteland of toxic sludge left behind after the plant closed in 2001.

With the third and final phase of environmental remediation of the site underway, what was once an infamous urban blight will be home to a freshwater river running alongside green parklands.

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Teck cashes in on Chile’s copper – by Gordon Pitts (Globe and Mail – April 30, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

ANDACOLLO, CHILE – For centuries, pilgrims have thronged to the Chilean mountain town of Andacollo – to worship at the historic church and to mine the dusty hills for copper.

The Incas built parts of their civilization on the rich copper and gold deposits unearthed here before Spanish conquerors swept in. Since then, church and mines have become intertwined in the culture: The epic rescue of 33 Chilean miners in 2010 is attributed by many here to prayers uttered at Our Lady of Andacollo.

Now a new wave of pilgrims is worshipping at the altar of Andacollo – Canadians, in the form of Teck Resources Ltd., (TCK.B-T36.860.110.30%) the Vancouver-based mining giant that has spent more than $440-million (U.S.) expanding an open-pit copper project on the edge of town.

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Demand ‘unreal’ for mining jobs – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 30, 2012)

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

Jeff Lafortune teaches in the civil and mining engineering technologist program at College Boreal he graduated from 15 years ago. In that decade and a half, he has seen a tremendous demand build for skilled mining employees.

“When I graduated, there was one company in town … and there were 15 of us wanting that job,” Lafortune said Saturday. “Now, there are 15 companies wanting that one person. So it’s opportunity for the kids. It’s unreal,” said Lafortune, who was taking part in a career fair at the New Sudbury Centre as part of Sudbury Mining Week.

Lafortune was advising people who stopped at his booth about job possibilities after they graduate from the three-year program in which students learn skills such as surveying, ventilation, planning and designing, “and a whole realm of different work.”

He worked 15 years in the industry with several mining companies before heading to the classroom. “In mines, when I left, you could see it was hard to keep and retain” employees, said Lafortune. The mining industry is booming and skilled tradespeople have their pick of the best jobs.

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‘Workers’ voices need to be heard’ – by Jacob Touchette (Sudbury Star – April 30, 2012)

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

Wake up, go to work, come home. Not everyone makes it to the third step. Each year, many workers never get to come home, and on April 28, Day of Mourning, those who have died or been injured on the job were remembered.

City council chambers were packed with people as they gathered to remember those who gave their lives or were injured on the job.

In Sudbury, thoughts were focused on the three families affected by the deaths of Sudbury miners Jason Chenier, Jordan Fram and Stephen Perry.

There have been an average of 240,000 injuries each year for the past 10 years, said Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers Union. “It isn’t just a mining industry issue,” he said. “It’s an issue where workers voices need to be heard.”

Gerard said that despite the efforts of unions and health and safety activists, the numbers of injuries and fatalities is “unacceptable.”

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[Kenora] Bear Pit’ session addresses Ring of Fire, Tourist Information Centres, education and infrastructure – by Reg Clayton (Lake of the Woods Enterprise – April 28, 2012)

 http://www.lotwenterprise.com/

Provincial cabinet ministers field hard ball questions pitched by NOMA delegates

Delegates grilled three Ontario cabinet ministers and a parliamentary assistant on progress with the Ring of Fire, the closure of regional Tourist Information Centres, education and training initiaitvies and infrastructure funding at the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) annual meeting in Kenora, Friday, April 27.

NOMA president Ron Nelson served as moderator for the minister’s forum comprised of Natural Resources Minister Michael Gravelle, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Glen Murray and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines Bill Mauro.

The ministers responded to ‘Bear Pit’ questions posed by municipal delegates regarding the apparent lack of progress on the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario with assurances that discussions are ongoing on a multi-ministerial level in consultation with mining companies and area First Nations. However, details of these discussions remain confidential, according to the ministers.

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Iamgold acquires Trelawney Mining in $608-million deal – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – April 28, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

For Iamgold Corp., the $608-million acquisition of a little-known Ontario gold explorer is a step toward two key company goals – offsetting an Africa-heavy portfolio and propelling it toward a goal of doubling production in five years.

Toronto-based Iamgold is offering $3.30 a share for Trelawney Mining and Exploration Inc., which gives it control of a large gold deposit practically in its backyard, thousands of kilometres from Iamgold’s key producing assets in South America and Africa.

“The acquisition of Trelawney creates a larger and more geographically balanced portfolio of long-life gold assets for Iamgold,” Steve Letwin, the company’s chief executive officer, said Friday.

The all-cash acquisition comes as gold companies’ equity valuations flounder, sliced in half in some cases from year-ago levels by investors abandoning the sector in favour of less risky, higher-yielding assets. Ballooning costs for everything from raw materials to skilled labour are also fuelling investor concerns.

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TransCanada mulls switching natural gas mainline to oil service – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 28, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

CALGARY — TransCanada Corp. said it’s taking a serious look at converting its underused mainline, Canada’s largest natural gas pipeline, to oil service, a prospect that would give a big boost to the idea of a Canadian solution to anti-oil sands activism by shipping more of Canada’s Western oil to Eastern consumers.
 
CEO Russ Girling said Friday refiners in Eastern Canada and oil producers in Western Canada are keen on the concept and have asked TransCanada to look into the feasibility of converting parts of the system.
 
“We are going to actively pursue it and see if we can turn it into an opportunity for both, the oil and gas industry and TransCanada,” Mr. Girling told reporters after addressing the company’s annual meeting.
 
The giant pipeline is TransCanada’s original business and is one of Canada’s nation-building infrastructures. For decades, it is has moved natural gas from Empress, Alta., down to the U.S. northeast and into Ontario and Quebec.

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Growing underground [in closed copper mine]: Canadian medicinal marijuana producer trys to put down U.S. roots – by Tom Blackwell (National Post – April 28, 2012)

 The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The sprawling copper mine that stretches deep below White Pine once employed thousands of people, helping make the remote Michigan town a thriving outpost of the state’s northern hinterland.
 
Prices for the metal started to plummet, however, forcing the facility to shut down in 1996 and leaving White Pine a virtual ghost town. Suburban bungalows that once housed copper miners and their families now sell to vacationers for as little as $10,000.
 
Now a Canadian company is promoting an unorthodox form of salvation for the area, floating a plan to grow marijuana inside the cavernous mine to serve the state’s legion of 180,000 licensed pot users. Like a similar subterranean operation that Prairie Plant Systems (PPS) owns in Manitoba, the Michigan site would offer security from theft, natural climate control and little chance of contamination, its supporters argue.

Legislation expected to be introduced in both Michigan state chambers in the next week or two would set the stage for such industrial-scale production, outlining a series of standards that medical marijuana producers must meet. Michigan approved personal use of cannabis as a health product in 2008, but its somewhat chaotic implementation has undermined patient and public safety, said Brent Zettl, CEO of Prairie Plant.

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Goldcorp’s Hallnor tailings clean-up going better than expected – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – April 27, 2012)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

Company expertise beginning to show results across the city

Land reclamation work by Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines continues in Timmins and the results appear positive. The company, which won an environmental award last year, for its work on the Coniaurum tailings project, is moving forward on the Hallnor tailings in the East End and a company official said the work is progressing better than expected.

Goldcorp PGM’s environmental manager László Götz, said this past week that the company is becoming so adept at reclamation work that the job is actually running more smoothly than expected. Götz was speaking at a meeting of the Porcupine Watchful Eye, a community group that oversees Goldcorp environmental operations in Timmins.

“The Hallnor Reclamation seems to be now going easier because of the experience we gained during the Coniaurum and Hollinger tailings reclamations. So I can say that our work is much better going than previously thought,” said Götz.

He is referring to the fact that Goldcorp has spent huge sums of money in the past five years to restore old tailings properties to a more natural state.

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Follow the development [Thunder Bay] – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Jouranl Editorial (April 27, 2012)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

IT SEEMS there is so much going on in Thunder Bay that it’s hard to keep track of. In one way, that’s a good thing. Thunder Bay needs development to complement what’s left of forestry, build on the next big mining boom and capitalize on the emergence of medical research clusters.

But citizens need to keep aware and be apprised of all these initiatives. It’s our community, our region, and the power brokers must always bear in mind who’s in charge. Grand plans cost money and it mostly comes from taxpayers.

There are two distinct camps among supporters of a proposed event centre. Those who favour a downtown waterfront site agree it will build on and feed off the city’s designated entertainment district surrounding it. Those set on Innova Business Park like the wide-open space to allow for on-site parking and access from adjacent expressways.

A letter writer today wonders if Thunder Bay and area’s notoriously fickle sports fans will troop to a new arena when so few fail to attend events like the Dudley Hewitt Cup.

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Direct action threat shows fragile peace on Nishnawbi Aski land [Northern Ontario First Nations] – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – April 26, 2012)

This article came from Wawatay News: http://www.wawataynews.ca/

Remember back in January when all sides were talking about the new relationship between the federal government and First Nations? Phrases like resetting the relationship, unlocking the potential and realizing the promise were being bandied about by everyone involved.
 
Those days seem like a long time ago. Since then a number of major resource projects have taxed the federal government-First Nations relationship. Paramount is the Northern Gateway pipeline that would bring oilsands bitumen to BC’s west coast, for transport by supertanker to Chinese refineries. Over 50 First Nations oppose that project, including nations with traditional lands all along the pipeline’s route.
 
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver lumped together opponents to the pipeline, including First Nations, environmentalists and labour organizations, as “radicals” out to stop all development. He stated publically that these radical groups are being funded by foreign money in order to “undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

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