Vancouver conference focuses on the environment

Environmental issues relevant to the mining industry were discussed here by 24 speakers in a special session on metals and minerals at Globe ’90, a conference aimed at promoting the implementation of practical solutions to global environmental challenges. Site-specific and industry-wide strategies were discussed by a variety of speakers, who appear to have embraced the policy of sustainable development as a realistic and practical approach to environmental issues.

Bruce Howe, deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, and Douglas Horswill, British Columbia’s deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, provided the government perspective. Both called for industry and the scientific community to play a greater role in launching environmental initiatives.

John Zigarlick, president of Echo Bay Mines, provided a case study of mining in the northern environment and how technology developed in the north is being applied elsewhere. But he had little praise for the mining industry’s track record in communicating its environmental commitment.

“We brag about how many tons of rocks we break, but we don’t brag about what we do on the environmental front,” he said.

David Brown, associate director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, commented on events in Eastern Europe and the environmental crisis facing those nations. He said central planning is being replaced by a market- oriented economy that will be better equipped to deal with environmental challenges.

“The paradox of technology is that only economically progressive nations can be good environmental stewards,” he said. “Where there is deprivation, environmental degradation abounds.”

On the contentious land use issue, Brown said it should be emphasized that mineral activity is an interim use of the land, not a final one.

“We find minerals where nature placed them, not where we would like them to be,” he added. “Locking away lands where we do not know the mineral potential is not good stewardship.”

Kazue Moriya, president of Mitsubishi Cominco Smelting of Japan, discussed innovations in smelting and urged that all smelters in the world incorporate modern technology. And Ken Dredge of M.I.M. Holdings of Australia said his country’s mining industry is committed to being “a part of the (environmental) solution.”

Anthony Stikeman, an Ottawa- based consultant for Corporation House, told mining officials they can expect little return initially on environmental initiatives because industry is still perceived as resisting environmental change. Stikeman said industry should do more long-term environmental planning, speak out on issues and show their expertise, look at recycling and reprocessing, and develop and suggest new environmental incentives.

“Gain control of issues so you can initiate rather than react,” he urged. “And do more than the minimum.”

One of the sessions dealt with specific challenges faced by the mining industry; namely sulphur abatement processes, mine reclamation policies and procedures, acid mine drainage issues and control technologies, and waste disposal.

Because Canada has been in the forefront of many advancements in these areas, it was noted that the export of Canadian technologies and environmental services will be in demand in the decades ahead.

The final session looked to the future of the mining industry in the 1990s. John Laffin, deputy minister of Nova Scotia’s Department of Mines and Energy and president of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and Bruce McRae of the British Columbia government’s Mineral Resources Division, both emphasized the need for industry, government, academia and others to work together to find environmental solutions.

George Miller, president of the Mining Association of Canada, said multiple land use will be a key to sustainable development and the industry will continue to fight “unreasonable demands” restricting access to potential mineral resources.

Judith Skidmore of NorthCARE, a northern Ontario advocacy group for resource equity, also addressed this thorny issue by pointing out that multiple land use generates stable and diversified local economies in remote areas.

The environment will also present new legal challenges for the mining industry, warned Roger Cotton, a Toronto-based lawyer with Baker & McKenzie. Cotton said a growing number of pollution cases are finding their way into the courts, and industry can expect to be challenged on personal and corporate liability issues in the years ahead.

Norman Keevil, president of Teck Corp. and chairman of the Mining Association of Canada, reaffirmed his organization’s commitment to the concept of sustainable development as unveiled in its environmental policy over a year ago. He also stressed that mining provides materials to sustain and improve life, at home and in other countries.

“Mining is not a sunset industry but an essential one,” he said. “The challenge is not to eliminate it but to continue in a socially acceptable manner.”

Keevil also pointed out that Eastern Europe will be the “social and environmental story of the ’90s” in that its technology is dated and plants will likely have to be scrapped or replaced.

Inco’s Roy Aitken ended the session with the warning that it will be an “uphill struggle” for industry to build credibility on environmental issues, even though it is becoming recognized that market forces and the profit motive will be among the drivers of change.

“The mining industry successfully met safety challenges in the ’50s and ’60s,” he said. “Now is the time to meet environmental challenges.”