Sudbury conference sheds light on acid mine drainage

The federal government will release an official policy paper to show that it is committed to the goal of “sustainable development” with respect to mining.

The announcement was made by Brent St. Denis, a member of Parliament and representative of the Ministry of Natural Resources who spoke at “Sudbury ’95,” a conference and trade show on mining and the environment.

St. Denis was one of more than 470 experts who gathered in Ontario’s nickel capital to attend the event, which was sponsored by government, industry and research agencies.

Researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the U.S. and Mexico joined Canadian experts to discuss mine rehabilitation and environmental protection.

The Sudbury region, once scorned as Canada’s largest producer of sulpher dioxide, has undergone a remarkable rehabilitation in the past 25 years.

Illustrating this fact were several technical sessions devoted to the municipality’s award-winning tree-planting program, which is aimed at remedying the city’s reputation for resembling an industry-scarred “moonscape” The conference was used to unveil a book, Environmental Restoration and Recovery of an Industrial Region, which describes Sudbury’s land reclamation program and outlines developments in pollution control and environmental monitoring.

Several technical papers dealt with what many regard as the single greatest environmental problem facing the industry — acid mine drainage (AMD). One of the papers attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of coating sulphide waste with various substances to eliminate acid-producing interactions; another discussed processes for treating sludges and tailings; and yet another provided a summary of experiments used to control the erosion of tailings dams through bio-engineering.

Various approaches to combating AMD were presented in the hope that experts from around the world would have an opportunity to share knowledge and technology, according to Diana Schoeffman of Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, one of the conference’s principal sponsors.

Other papers discussed such topics as director/officer liability, mine decommissioning and the use of abandoned mines as landfill sites.

Proceedings of Sudbury ’95 are available in three volumes. Volume 1 contains information from the sessions that dealt with “Tailings, Waste Rock and Slag Management” and “Mining and Society”; volume 2 contains “AMD and Prevention Control” and “Ground and Surface Water”; and volume 3 contains “New Tools/Old Problems” and “Rehabilitation Methods.”

Copies of the proceedings

and the book Environmental Restoration and Recovery of an Industrial Region are available from the Centre in Mining and Mineral Exploration and Research (CIMMER), FA 380, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont. Phone: (705) 673-6572 or Fax: (705) 673-6508.