This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

The Ontario Mining Association and the Canadian Land Reclamation Association (CLRA) are joining forces to hold the fifth annual Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium and Field Trip.  This event is scheduled for June 20 and 21, 2012 at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

The seminar includes sessions on the geology and mining history of the Thunder Bay area along with understanding the chemical properties of peat bogs and blueberry soils on Northwestern Ontario.  An update on the development of restoration protocols at De Beers Canada’s Victor diamond Mine, located 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat, will be presented.  These studies are expanding knowledge for reclamation activities in the Ring of Fire area, which is under development.

Another case study will centre on the evolution of closure planning and consultation at Barrick Hemlo Mines Williams gold property near Marathon.  Roger Souckey from Barrick Hemlo Mines and Shane Hayes of the Pic Mobert First Nation will be making this presentation.  Also, the decommissioning of Vale’s (Inco’s) Shebandowan nickel mine near Thunder Bay will be reviewed.  Read the rest of this entry »

Industry association to draw attention to clean technology innovation
 
VANCOUVER, BC – May 14th, 2012 - The Clean Mining Alliance is pleased to announce the unveiling of its new industry association aimed at supporting and advocating technological advancements to make the mining industry cleaner and more environmentally responsible.

“Frameworks exist to increase social responsibility in mining, but despite advancements in exploration, extraction, production and reclamation technology, the industry has struggled to present itself as having grown beyond the mining days of old,” says Dallas Kachan, Executive Director of the Clean Mining Alliance. “The Clean Mining Alliance exists to help promote new and emerging technology developments that are making mining more environmentally responsible.”

The Clean Mining Alliance is a newly formed international non-profit organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is being introduced during British Columbia Mining week, a time when the province celebrates the contributions the mining industry brings to the province, its communities and businesses.

Members of the Clean Mining Alliance include companies on the forefront of innovative breakthroughs in the mining industry, as well as leading research organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html
 
Federal commitment to streamline the environmental review process gets mixed reviews

Federal commitments to streamline environmental reviews of major resource projects sit well with the mining industry, but not so well with environmentalists, scientists and many other notable Canadians.
 
Miners have been a leading voice in calling on the Harper Conservatives to amend the review process to remove what they believe are needless delays in getting projects vetted by federal regulators.
 
They want duplication of paperwork eliminated, and they want Ottawa to commit its bureaucracy to fixed time limits for reviewing projects and rendering a verdict.
 
That could mean faster turnaround times on projects that typically take a decade to develop from early drilling investigations to operating mines. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario Mining Association member Vale, after a successful pilot project, will soon be producing fish near its underground greenhouse at the Creighton Mine in Sudbury.  When they resurface, the subterranean grown fish will be released for restocking Sudbury area lakes and rivers.
 
Back in November of last year, Vale’s Environment Department placed fingerling rainbow trout in 1,500-litre tanks at its surface greenhouse.  Five months of care and feeding resulting in the rainbow trout growing to about 20 centimetres in length.  Recently, they were given a new home after being transported to the Onaping River.
 
“We are very proud of this project and its successful outcome,” said Glen Watson from Vale’s Environment group.  “The fish will provide a boost to the river’s fish population and biodiversity, providing a highly valued resource for the community to enjoy.” Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Members of Vale’s environmental department felt like ‘fish out of water’ when they launched the initial phase of their latest pilot project last November, which saw about 4,000 baby rainbow trout take up temporary residence at the company’s surface greenhouse in Copper Cliff.

But after five months of successfully raising the fish, the environmental team can now add “fish farmer” to their resumes and are excited to begin work on the next phase, which will establish a world-class sustainable fish farming operation 4,200 feet underground at the Creighton Mine greenhouse.

It’s an operation that will be the first of its kind, according to project leaders. The new initiative aims to restock fish supplies in local lakes that might have been stressed by recreational and commercial fishing, or environmental stresses from mining.

Vale has partnered with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, local fish expert Mike Meeker and professors at the University of Guelph to work on the project. Read the rest of this entry »

http://sudburysteve.blogspot.ca/

Steve May is the CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association (Opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada – Steve May)

Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the New Democratic Party, should they form Canada’s next government (and let’s be frank here: there’s a very good chance that they will do just that), if it follows through on its policy (always a big “if” for the NDP), will establish a Cap and Trade emissions trading scheme which will see the sale of carbon offsets between various industrial emitters. Such a Cap and Trade scheme could conceivably involve about half of Canada’s emitters, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon Trading

The Cap and Trade approach to carbon pricing will prove to be very problematic for business and industry, and for all Canadians. With their advocacy to implement carbon trading, the NDP may have struck upon a better policy than the Conservative’s regulatory approach, but with so many uncertainties and the opportunity for exemption and fraud in new carbon market, it’s far from the best option on the table if the goal is to reduce emissions. I’ve previously blogged about my concerns with Cap and Trade, so I’ll not go into significant detail here, as I’ve done so elsewhere (see: “Cap and Trade: Is this the Best that We can Come Up With?”, January 15, 2010) Read the rest of this entry »

http://sudburysteve.blogspot.ca/

Steve May is the CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association (Opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada – Steve May)

Is it sensible that the Conservative Party, which has embraced cutting environmental regulations and environmental assessment processes in the name of economic growth, could ever be a threat to Canada’s resource sector? On first blush, it would seem highly improbable that would be the case, but keep in mind that for the Conservative Party, not all natural resource sectors are created equally.

The Conservative Party’s policies significantly favour Canada’s fossil fuels sector over all other resource sectors. In fact, Conservative policies will actually jeopardize the important success of Canadian miners over the medium and long term. And it all has to do with carbon pricing (well, maybe not “all”, as I can’t help but recall the uneven and apparently arbitrary application of the “net benefit” provisions of the Investment Canada Act in the Potash Corp. matter a few years back).

Although the Conservative Party of Canada is not in any way, shape or form considering putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions, the fact of the matter is that it’s the only national political party in Canada which is opposed to carbon pricing. Read the rest of this entry »

 http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

The tree nursery at Vale’s Sudbury Creighton Mine will become home to a fish hatchery
 
Nickel mining giant Vale will be pulling something new out of the ground in Sudbury — fish. Vale has already been growing tree seedlings in a green house deep in the warm underground for decades, but now the company wants to raise rainbow trout right next to them.

The trees are planted in Sudbury to re-green the landscape scarred by mining. And the fish will be put into lakes “that may have been stressed by mining activities in the past,” said Glen Watson, Vale’s senior environmental specialist.
 
“Northern Ontarians love their fish. Sudburians, in particular, love their fish. We have a lot of lakes to put them in.” Underground heat helps fish grow

Vale has spent the past five months raising Rainbow trout in an above-ground facility. On Thursday it released 4,000 fish in the Onaping River. Now that the system is tested, the project will begin underground at Vale’s Creighton mine. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Palkovits-Vale Environment Group (Vale Photo)

SUDBURY, April 19, 2012 – Lately, there have been more than just seedlings growing in Vale’s surface greenhouse in Copper Cliff.

In November 2011, Vale’s Environment Department initiated a pilot project to raise rainbow trout for stocking in Sudbury area lakes and rivers. Rainbow trout fingerlings were placed in two 1,500 litre tanks in Vale’s surface greenhouse. 

Vale consulted with local fish farming expert Mike Meeker of Meeker’s Aquaculture on Manitoulin Island in order to set up the operation and define the operating procedures. Vale also worked with the local office of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to choose an appropriate water body in which to release the Rainbow Trout. 

After five months of feeding and caring, the fish grew to approximately 20 centimetres long, and were transported to the Onaping River for stocking. This location was favoured by Vale due to historical mining impacts on the river system. 

(L to R) Lisa Lanteigne, Mark Palkovits, Glen Watson - Vale Environment Group (Vale Photo)

Read the rest of this entry »

http://sudburysteve.blogspot.ca/

Steve May is the CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association (Opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada – Steve May)

In my previous post, I wrote about the growing importance of the mining sector to Canada’s economy, and about why it’s important for our governments to enact the right carbon pricing policies. In this post, I’m going to talk about Canada’s historic commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to combat climate change, and why Canadians continue to demand action, and how action may impact the mining sector.

The Crises with Our Climate

There is no doubt whatsoever that human industrial activity is causing global climate change to the point that our rapidly changing climate is leading towards a crisis unlike any we have encountered before. This crisis is already having planetary impacts. Coupled with rising prices for non-renewable energy resources, particularly oil, the climate crisis will change not just our physical environment, but our economic circumstance, and social and political institutions as well. These changes are inevitable. That’s why I believe it’s best to plan for them, rather than to let them overtake us.

The mining sector will not be immune from these changes. Read the rest of this entry »

http://sudburysteve.blogspot.ca/

Steve May is the CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association (Opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada – Steve May)

When people think about how Canada’s resource sector is driving economic growth, we tend to first think about the extraction of fossil fuels, such as oil and gas. Certainly, the stories about Canada’s growing fossil fuel sector are constantly found throughout the mainstream media, and tar sands petroleum companies have even been placing their own television and print media ads, in a public relations effort intended to combat negative environmental perceptions.

But there’s been a low-key success story which many Canadians aren’t aware of in one of Canada’s natural resource sectors. The mining industry has been quietly booming in Canada for some time now, and the future continues to look very bright (see: “Canada’s mining boom takes a back seat to no industry”, Globe and Mail, April 4, 2012). The mining industry’s success story doesn’t come as a surprise to Sudburians, and Northern Ontarians, because we see those successes almost daily. However, for other Canadians, especially those living in large urban centres, mining remains a somewhat remote afterthought.

Mining: the Bedrock of Sudbury’s Success

Sudbury’s history is the history of local mining. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Anmar Mechanical and Electrical Contractors Inc. is one of dozens of local companies that will benefit from Vale Ltd.’s $2-billion Clean AER Project. The Lively-based company has won the contract to fabricate four converters that are a big part of the environmental upgrade of the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex.

Anmar president Gianni Grossi won’t reveal the exact amount of the contract, but says it is in the neighbourhood of $15 million — and could employ as many as 700 of his employees at the peak of construction.

Each of the converters is 44 feet long and 13 feet in diameter, and is made of two-inch boiler-plate steel that will stand up to high temperatures in the smelting process. Anmar has also bid on contracts for other parts of the Clean AER (Atmospheric Emissions Reduction) Project. His company is also involved in other work during shutdown and other times at Vale facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Dave Stefanuto tells the story of taking his two young sons to Science North, where they love the space exhibits on the top floor.  One time, he pointed the boys to a photograph of Apollo astronauts walking on the rocky landscape that was Sudbury in the 1970s.

“How come they’re wearing shorts on the moon?” one of his sons asked him, to which Stefanuto replied: “That’s not the moon, that’s Sudbury.” It’s a sobering reminder that Sudbury wasn’t always as green as it is today.

Sudbury was the butt of jokes four decades ago and for years after those astronauts visited a city whose landscape was a dead-ringer for the moon. Anyone who has visited the Nickel City in the last 25 years has had no reason to laugh at us. In three years’ time, they will have even less.

Stefanuto, 39, has come back to Sudbury after seven or eight years spent working for Vale in Newfoundland and Labrador. He came back home to head up Vale’s $2-billion Clean AER (Atmospheric Emissions Reduction) Project. Read the rest of this entry »