Editorial Keeping MEND on the move

The purpose of MEND is prevention and control of acidic runoff from mine tailings. Its mandate is to conduct research on how to predict the long-term requirements needed to manage acid-generating mine tailings and to establish techniques to avoid such tailings in the future.

Make no mistake: acidic run-off from mine tailings is a major headache for the industry. There’s something like 37,000 acres of mine wastes in the country containing 315 million tons of material. The average cost of treating that waste so it doesn’t generate acidic runoff is estimated at $300,000 per acre. To clean up existing tailings dumps plus those that will be generated over the next 20 years would cost about $3 billion or $150 million a year.

Obviously, if a better way can be found, there could be significant savings.

There are currently disputes over exactly who is responsible for existing tailings sites. Many have been abandoned, the operating company wound up and ownership reverted to the Crown. Those disputes are likely to continue, but there can be little doubt that responsibility for currently tailings rests squarely with the companies involved and their shareholders. For example, Ontario’s recent discussion paper on proposed revisions to the province’s Mining Act proposes that companies planning to develop a mineral claim must post a bond to ensure that the mine site will be cleaned up adequately when mining is completed.

That could prove to be a costly new addition to the capital cost of putting a mine into production. But if problems such as acidic runoff from tailings can be tackled through research now, the costs of cleaning up a mine site could be reduced and the bond reduced.

So the research involved in MEND is in the best interest of everyone. That being said, it is always easier to state an objective than it is to get governments and industry to commit money and effort into reaching that objective.

In this case, however, there is a momentum that one can only hope continues until a solution is found. The Mining Association of Canada got the ball rolling in earnest last August when, after government and industry had spent two years identifying 40 research projects, it committed more than $4 million to fund research on reducing acid mine water.

While government has not matched that initiative, there has been support on a project-by-project basis. To date, nine projects are being supported with $3 million. Industry has put up $1.1 million, the federal government has put up $1.2 million and the provinces of British Columbia, New Brunswick and Manitoba have put up almost $700,000.

Noticeable by their absence are the major mining provinces of Ontario and Quebec. But, at the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s annual meeting recently in Quebec City, Quebec Mines Minister Raymond Savoie said “I do hope I can announce shortly that I have received all the necessary appropriations to support this program very strongly.”

In Ontario, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister John Gammon said his province is “very committed to the concept of MEND” but that a suitable project for public funding in the province has not been identified. With budgetary constraints, evident in the latest federal budget, it is understandable why money is not readily available. However, federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson said in the budget that regional programs would be continued. Presumably, that means the Mineral Development Agreements between Ottawa and the provinces will be renewed thereby providing funds for MEND.

There’s still a long way to go to solve the problem of acidic runoff from mine tailings, but the progress so far has been encouraging.

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