GUEST COLUMN (April 27, 1992)

Three recent conferences illustrate why environmental issues continue to be a priority for the mining industry.

During the week of March 9-13, I attended Mining Week in British Columbia, a public celebration of the importance of the industry to that province. The message delivered by the one-day symposium on “B.C. Mining — The Way It Is” was not very encouraging. As a result of damage inflicted by the recession, weak metal prices, and insensitive public policy, two speakers projected that by the year 2000 the mining industry in British Columbia would shrink to about half of its size in 1990.

Federal-provincial overlap in the environmental field is blamed for inhibiting the development of new projects to replace mines that are closing. According to Sandy Laird of Placer Dome, permitting a new mine in British Columbia now takes more than two years as compared with only six months in Australia and almost no time in Chile.

A report on “The State of the Minerals Industry in British Columbia,” prepared by mining associations based in British Columbia, agrees. The report notes that permitting now takes about 24 months and costs $1 million to $5 million, up from 12 months and $100,000-200,000 in the period 1970-1985. Globe ’92, the second biennial environmental conference and trade show, took place in Vancouver the following week. To me, a sense of unreality, even irrelevance, prevailed.

Within the conference halls, many earnest speeches were made. But, as in 1990, the various interests seemed to be talking to themselves. Few environmentalists, and no media, attended the sessions that dealt with the problems and achievements of the mining industry.

The clincher, if any were needed to point up the fantasyland aspect, was the customary Greenpeace demonstration (a banner hung on the building using mountaineering gear) against the conference and the “polluters” that attended. As usual, the media played up the photo opportunity and studiously ignored the substance of the conference.

Back to the real world to attend the annual meeting of the board of directors of the MEND (Mine Environment Neutral Drainage) program. Here, I was treated to a review of some serious and constructive technical work. MEND researchers have made Canada the leader in understanding the phenomenon of acid drainage. They are well on the way to predicting its occurrence and defining several promising options for its control.

The price tag to date is about $6.2 million. Of this, industry has contributed about 42%, the federal government 39% and the provinces 19%. The search for practical solutions goes on: the board authorized an increase in the research plan to $17.9 million from the originally estimated $12.5 million. This will complete the priority projects and draw the program to a close in 1996.

The industry will be hard pressed to find the necessary cash, but the enormous stakes for the environment and the economy leave us little choice. — George Miller is president of the Mining Association of Canada.