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A lime solution is sprayed onto tailings pond to reduce acid.
Within a few years, huge areas of Timmins will no longer be recognizable to city residents. That's good news according for environmental planners at Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines. Company officials took city media on a tour of the Hollinger tailings area this week to outline the work underway to finally clean-up one of the city's environmental wastelands, which sits just north and east of the Timmins and District Hospital area. “This tailings area has been sitting here for probably about fifty or sixty years,” said David Bucar, the Strategic Development Manager for Goldcorp in Timmins. He said the tailings came from the Hollinger and the McIntyre gold mines. “It was really high sulphide ore that wasn't processed properly and ultimately you end up with a lot of acid generating tailings,” he said. Bucar says the tailings also include a large pond that was dug up in the late 1980s by ERG Resources Inc., as part of that company's bid to recover gold from the older tailings left from the 1920s and 1930s. The pond is surrounded by berms and dams so that the water cannot escape to the outside environment. “We have very low PH, it's very acidic water. We have elevated metal concentrations in the water. So environmentally, it's not very pleasant. Unfortunately it has been ongoing like this for many, many decades,” he said. Eventually, all the old contaminated tailings will be buried and covered with a layer of organic material and bio-solids nearly a metre deep, said Bucar. The area will then be re-vegetated and covered with native grasses and shrubs. As part of the clean up, Goldcorp is also covering the entire area with a coating of lime to neutralize the acids in the water and on the surface. As the acid water is neutralized it becomes clean enough to discharge to Town Creek. Bucar says the treatment is unlike anything Goldcorp has had to do before and involved years of planning and months of waiting while the plan was examined and approved by the various ministries and government agencies that provide the permits for the work. GOLDCORP USES CLEAN UP TO PROVE ITSELF
Bucar added that the Hollinger tailings are the highest priority Goldcorp has in terms of local mine properties that need cleaning up. He said that the mining industry may have “a pretty bad image from the past decades, where unfortunately, a lot of these sites were left un-reclaimed. So it is our commitment to clean up the old sites whether or not we do mine.” Bucar said the tailings clean-up also sends a positive message to the public that the company is doing the right thing for the environment. He says that's important when the company is currently planning to create a major open pit mine on the former Hollinger property. He says the clean-up is a way that Goldcorp can prove itself to the public. “So whether a project like our Hollinger pit does go ahead we are committed to cleaning up the old Hollinger tailings. But obviously there is incentive for us to prove to the public that yes, we are socially responsible,” said Bucar. “You know we can clean up as we go. Unfortunately we do have a lot of historical liabilities to clean up but we are committed to doing that whether or not we open new mines.” Kees Pols, the manager of the Mattagami Region Conservation Authority is also pleased with the clean-up effort. Pols said that over the years, many Timmins residents had questions about the colour and quality of the water in Town Creek. He said that will no longer be an issue in Timmins. There is a plus side to the clean-up for Goldcorp's bank account. When Goldcorp acquired all the Timmins mining properties nine years ago, the company had to post letters of credit and financial bonds with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines to ensure that the clean-up work would eventually be done. That has amounted to millions of dollars the company cannot use until the work is done and approved. Once the old mine sites are cleaned up and given the stamp of approval by the province, Goldcorp will be able to reclaim its cash. |