Mining the base, but Kirkland seeks diversification

Kirkland Lake is a traditional northern Ontario mining town now poised on the threshold of a major diversification to its economic base. The ambitious moves were necessitated, in part, by the serious negative effects of the cessation of flow- through share funding and a mining industry that has declined steadily over the past 20 years. No doubt the most controversial attempt to diversify revolves around the town’s proposal to use a former open pit iron mine as a disposal site for Metropolitan Toronto and area solid waste. Don Caveen, of Kirkland Lake’s Economic Development and Tourism department, told The Northern Miner that negotiations with Metro Toronto are under way and that hydrology testing is being carried out. “If that testing is positive, and we believe it will be, we expect Metro to begin seeking environmental approvals for the project,” Caveen said.

Some 180 jobs will be provided with the establishment of a federal Department of Veterans Affairs office in Kirkland Lake. Caveen said proposals have been called for construction of facilities to house the new regional office and that some staff will relocate from Toronto to temporary quarters as early as this month.

The town of 12,000 is already the location of an innovative cogeneration plant — a facility that generates electricity using natural gas and then combines waste heat from that process with wood chips to create further electricity. Ontario Hydro is expected to be the main purchaser of the electricity and the town is aggressively seeking a new industry that could use the excess heat and hot water that are byproducts of the electrical generating plant.

Though direct and indirect mining interests employ about 35% of the workforce, and while mining itself is currently a fairly stable business in the area, Kirkland Lake is obviously taking energetic and challenging steps to survive less on the mining sector and more on other initiatives.