Proposed Shoal Lake gold project faces environmental

A concerns about the potential impact the project would have on water quality in Shoal Lake.

According to David Smith, senior planner with MOE’s environmental assessment branch, private sector activities are generally not designated under the Environmental Assessment Act. For a private sector project to be designated, the government would have to pass a regulation in parliament. If a project is designated under the act, then the proponent must submit an environmental assessment study to the government. The study looks at the natural, technical, social and economic aspects of the project. One of the main objectives of the act is to protect and conserve the environment by looking at the impact of a project before it actually begins. A decision by MOE regarding the designation of the Shoal Lake project is expected by Jan. 25. planned feasibility study on the Shoal Lake gold deposit of Kenora Prospectors & Miners (CDN) near Kenora, Ont., has hit an environmental roadblock.

The program, which was to be carried out by Eastern Stone Products (ASE) in early January, has been delayed pending environmental designation by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE).

The City of Winnipeg, which draws its drinking water from the west shore of Shoal Lake’s Indian Bay, has asked the Ontario government to designate the project under the Environmental Assessment Act.

Dick Beard, mineral development co-ordinator for the northwest region of the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM), told The Northern Miner that his ministry believes that the companies have adequately addressed all of the regulatory issues. Beard says that the only hurdles left to clear are the approval of the closure plan and work permits which have been delayed at the request of MOE.

Gold mining and exploration in the Shoal Lake area dates back to the turn of the century. Several past-producing mines are located in the Shoal Lake watershed.

Kenora’s property lies between two former producers, the Mikado and Cedar Island mines. The property hosts preliminary reserves of 1.23 million tonnes grading 9.62 grams gold per tonne.

Shoal Lake first became an environmental “hot spot” in the early 1970s when Consolidated Professor Mines (TSE) began exploration work on its Duport gold property on Cameron Island. Exploration and development work was intermittently carried out on that property in the 1980s. Eventually the project was designated under the Environmental Assessment Act by the governing Liberals.

Unlike the Duport property, the Kenora property contains no arsenic and the gold is generally free milling. Eastern Stone, which is earning a 50% interest in the property, hopes to drive a ramp along the mineralized zone and carry out a test-milling program.

The company plans to use a gravity separation milling technique that requires no cyanide and recycles all of the water from the underground mine workings. Any tailings produced from the feasibility study would be housed in existing tailings ponds on the property. The old tailings ponds are routinely monitored by MOE.

The permitting process for the project began in July, 1992, when Kenora filed a notice of advanced exploration for the property with MNDM. In the late fall, the companies held public meetings and submitted a closure plan as required under the Ontario Mining Act.

In early December, the City of Winnipeg and a citizens’ coalition, the Winnipeg Water Protection Group, wrote to Ontario’s MOE asking that the project be designated under the provincial Environmental Assessment Act. Manitoba’s minister of the environment also wrote to the Ontario government expressing concerns about the potential impact the project would have on water quality in Shoal Lake.

According to David Smith, senior planner with MOE’s environmental assessment branch, private sector activities are generally not designated under the Environmental Assessment Act. For a private sector project to be designated, the government would have to pass a regulation in parliament. If a project is designated under the act, then the proponent must submit an environmental assessment study to the government. The study looks at the natural, technical, social and economic aspects of the project. One of the main objectives of the act is to protect and conserve the environment by looking at the impact of a project before it actually begins. A decision by MOE regarding the designation of the Shoal Lake project is expected by Jan. 25.