The good news for mining this early in the week is that two new mines have been approved. The first is the Denison Tony M uranium mine in Utah. The second is the Adanac Molybdenum Corporation Ruby Creek Project in British Columbia.
To see a new uranium mine come into operation is particularly encouraging. Having worked many years on the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project, I know that uranium mines can be operated & closed responsibly. I am also of the unpopular view that nuclear energy will prove to be the only long-term, sustainable, renewable clean source we have. What with WIPP open, there is a place to put the waste if only we could summon the national will to do so.
What little there is about the Tony M mine on the web includes the NI 43-101 report: it is mainly so much geology and so many cop-out statements that somebody else got the original data as to be dull reading.
As for the BC mine, you can see a slew of documents at the BC Environmental Assessment Office. I have done a reasonably exhaustive analysis of the documents at this link. It all boils down to the fact that the locals support the mine and that the acid generating material will go below water in the tailings impoundment. Thus they get their license and we are pleased to see a well-documented case history of how to open a mine in an indigenous area. This is good.
Then there is the bad news for mining. The least is that Glenacairn will probably never reopen their Bellavista mine in Costa Rica. A series of remarkable photos of the failing heap leach pad shows just how bad the situation is: the whole hillside along with the pad is reported to be moving downhill. The $250,000 in trust to deal with this will barely pay for one consultant to write a report. Over to the Costa Rica taxpayers–they will have to grow a lot of coffee to pay for this one.
The real event that forces us to think hard about what it means to open a new mine is the criticism of the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) World Bank guidelines for mining. I have written an analysis of these guidelines at this link. Here is my provocative opinion: the guidelines are an insult to the mining industry and its professionalism. The guidelines read as though written by a newly-graduated arts student who found mining-slivers on bad websites. The guidelines are puerile and pusillanimous. And their prescriptive standards are inappropriate.
I propose that they should be withdrawn immediately and redone by professionals. And if the World Bank is unwilling to do this, I propose the mining industry repudiate the guidelines in their entirety. More: if the mining industry wishes to have a shred of a claim to professionalism and credibility, it should commission an independent body to draft new guidelines for and on behalf of the World Bank. Get those Londoners from the ICMM to write something decent and informed. Pull those MMSD folk out of retirement to put together something we can be proud of. Put Anthony Hodges to work before he starts lecturing at Queen’s. Get Dirk Van Zyl to apply his charm and skills before he moves to Vancouver and UBC. Get some of those young mining professors in the USA to bring new ideas and new energy to bear on this horrible document.
I cannot believe that any reputable mining company can morally accept a loan from the IFC on the basis that they have demonstrated compliance with the guidelines. Take a brief look at the Ruby Creek documents and you will immediately see that it can be done a great deal better. Maybe we should get the people from Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd. who compiled the Ruby Creek documents to write new IFC guidelines.
The IFC guidelines raise fundamental questions of what constitutes a social license to mine, what constitutes responsible mining, how to close a mine, and what it means to claim adherence to the principles of sustainable development. If the IFC guidelines are allowed to stand, the mining industry will be the victim. It will never be able to claim the truth: for the most part, most mining companies are responsible, mining can be effected & effective, and we have lots of good examples of responsible mines, operating & closed. And as a profession, we are able & willing to self-regulate and weed out from our ranks the scallywags & foolish.
The only justification I offer for these harsh remarks is this: just because you subscribe and love something does not mean that everything about it is good. Indeed, if you are a believer and a professional, it is your duty to keep things honest & decent. For example, as a person mad about opera, I have to admit that Linda di Chamounix is a terrible opera, whereas that frothy nonsense Il Viaggio a Riems is fantastic and does opera honor. My remarks are not the Gotterdammerung of mining; merely the hope so inherent in La Cenerentola. Good will prevail if good people act.
