The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Two Sudbury research organizations received almost $900,000 in funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. on Friday for projects that will make mining safer for workers and more economically viable.
About $784,000 will go to the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation to help develop a mobile canopy system that will make it safer for workers to tunnel into ore bodies and will almost triple the rate at which they do it.
Another $100,000 was announced for a diesel emission reductions research project being conducted by the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO) to test filters to protect miners from diesel fumes underground.
The funding was announced by Premier Kathleen Wynne in the Vale Cavern at Science North. Wynne said the two projects will help create and retain as many as 500 jobs, and pave the way for new mining operations that will create many more jobs in the long term.
She made the announcement the day after convening a full cabinet meeting at the Willet Green Miller Centre and attending at $1,750-a-plate dinner to boost the coffers of the Ontario Liberal Fund.
Wynne also attended a Franco-Ontarian Day ceremony on Thursday and jogged early Friday morning in the fog along the Jim Gordon Boardwalk, leading a group of students from Laurentian University, many of them members of the Young Liberals Association.
Wynne said she brought her cabinet to Sudbury to introduce them to a part of the province with which some of them might not be familiar.
A frequent visitor to Sudbury, Wynne credited northerners for building on “uniquely northern strengths” and the North’s potential.
The canopy system being developed by CEMI will be used in mining operations in Ontario and all over the world, said Wynne.
“That’s our niche in Ontario, making sure we have the smartest workforce and the best capacity to innovate,” she said.
The premier was impressed with how the canopy system, the first phase of CEMI’s Single Heading Lateral Development project, will make it faster, cheaper and safer to develop mineral deposits, especially those deep underground.
The diesel emissions reductions research project will shield miners from dangerous fumes and substantially reduce the volume of fresh air needed to heat and cool underground mines, said the premier.
“This research about protecting the health of our miners, it’s about creating new jobs, because the potential to lower operating costs and extend the life of miners is what our research must be about,” she said.
Wynne said she believes partnerships such as this one, with government acting as the catalyst, are the way government must work “to leverage the capacity of businesses and organizations and communities to do the work they need to do.”
For the original version of this article, click here: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/09/27/money-for-mine-researchers-in-sudbury