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Province approve Ring of Fire miner’s EA work plan

Ontario Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray has approved the amendments to the terms of reference for Noront’s proposed Eagle’s Nest nickel and copper mine in the Far North Ring of Fire.
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Ontario Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray has approved the amendments to the terms of reference for Noront’s proposed Eagle’s Nest nickel and copper mine in the Far North Ring of Fire.

Ontario Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray has approved the amendments to the terms of reference for Noront’s proposed Eagle’s Nest nickel and copper mine in the Far North Ring of Fire.

It’s the first step in the company’s environmental assessment process with much work to be done before a final decision on the project is made.

The terms are a work plan that outlines the types of studies and consultation Noront must undertake to demonstrate whether the proposed project can be done in a way that is protective of the environment and human health.

Some of the amendments to Noront’s terms of reference include ensuring potentially impacted First Nation communities can fully participate in and contribute to the company’s environmental assessment process.

The amendments include:

  • identifying and assessing alternative road alignments within their preferred road corridor

and providing specific opportunities for potentially impacted First Nations to fully participate in the company’s environmental assessment.

  • assessing the impacts of aggregate extraction, and considering the impacts of climate change on the project and the impacts of the project on climate change.

In late 2013, Noront filed a 4,700-page draft environmental assessment report on its Eagle’s Nest deposit and a proposed west-to-east access road to both federal and provincial authorities as part of a so-called harmonized process. It was designed to avoid unnecessary duplication, delays and uncertainties on development projects.

Feedback was received from the federal review, but little from the province until now.

A major stumbling block to Noront’s progress has been Ontario’s ongoing negotiations with the Matawa First Nations through the regional framework process. Matawa is a tribal council that represents nine communities with traditional lands in the area Noront is working.

Whenever a final agreement is eventually reached, it will address environmental issues, regional infrastructure, the health of the communities, resource revenue sharing, and provide a general understanding of how area First Nations will benefit and participate in development.

But the process seems to have taken longer than anticipated.

“In their minds, they (Ontario) were hoping to do this framework, get it out of the way and pave the way to seamless permitting,” said Noront president-CEO Al Coutts.

Eagle’s Nest contains 11 million tonnes of reserves of nickel, copper, platinum and palladium. The updated start date for commercial production is sometime in 2018. A proposed 280-kilometre access road would run from Pickle Lake to the deposit along a winter road route designed to minimize the environmental impact, avoid major river crossings and connect some of the isolated Matawa communities to the provincial highway.

With backing from Franco Nevada, Noront acquired the chromite properties in the Ring from Cliffs Natural Resources in a $27.5-million deal announced in March. The company now holds about 65 per cent of the land package in the mineral belt.

In a related move, Noront has named Steve Flewelling as its vice-president for mining and projects.

He has more than 30 years of experience in exploration, mine planning, construction and operations, Flewelling was a mine manager for Falconbridge’s (now Glencore’s) Sudbury operations for seven years during the 1990’s and oversaw the Kidd Mine D expansion project in Timmins between 2000 and 2002.

Most recently, Flewelling was senior vice-president of projects and exploration at Glencore/Xstrata Nickel and has held various senior engineering positions within the company on a domestic and worldwide basis, including as president of the laterite mining and ferronickel smelting facility in the Dominican Republic.