Dear Mr. May,

Fast tracked, sustainable, economic mining can co-exist with environmental conservation!

We just have to get the present Ontario government to understand and adopt policy based upon their own studies;

• Their Ontario Far North Advisory Panel, who say large tracks of land set aside as parks are not the answer. The "Conservation-Matrix Model" is a fundamental part of the solution.
• Their 'Northern Policy Institute" who advocate the benefits of a "transportation authority" as opposed to a "provincial development corporation" model for the Ring of Fire.

Environmental sustainable resource mining should follow the Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment model, R-SEA , (not sanctioned in EA legislation nor regulations in Canada) with the integration of SEA-CEA into CEAA 2012, as outlined in "Conceptual and methodological challenges to integrating SEA and cumulative effects assessment" by Dr. Jill Gunn, Ph.D., M.C.I.P.

True R-SEA, coupled with the Ontario Far North Science Advisory Panel's advise of adopting a "Conservation-Matrix Model" (outlined in chapter 4), can eliminate the adverse effects of mining and other development projects on our environment. Piecemeal planning and decision-making should be avoided. A comprehensive access plan into the northern boreal area at a regional scale should establish limits on road densities, and on water access and wetland incursion in advance of development, rather than relying on after-the-fact mitigation and decommissioning.

KWG is working with Glencore affiliate XPS Consulting & Testwork Services and has filed a patent application, to commercialize a new method of refining into ferro chrome the chromite ore of its Black Horse deposit by means of natural gas. Their study suggested that overall direct energy costs to process one tonne of concentrate into metallised ferrochrome alloy were "less than half" that required for conventional technology. KWG said this process has a “considerably lower greenhouse gas emission footprint and greatly reduced impact on the environment.”

Advances in long-distance slurry pipeline liquid lining technology allow for very small chromite particle transport. A nickel chromite pipeline is feasible should the First Nation require it over rail. Chromite fines reaching Nakina by pipeline would not impede KWG's ability to reduce the chromite. Rail south of Nakina would still be required to supply Ontario's stainless steel industry.


May: North could be loser in Gateway approval


The Sudbury Star
By: Steve May, 21/06/2014

The recent federal government approval of Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline may prove to have far reaching consequences for Northern Ontarians, and ultimately may shape the development of the Ring of Fire.

There is little current need for Northern Gateway and other proposed pipelines such as Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain and Keystone XL . These pipelines are proposed to facilitate the expansion of the tar sands industrial enterprise, something Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, and previous Liberal governments, have been pushing.

Successive federal governments have failed to develop a national climate change strategy. Canada doesn't even have a national energy strategy. Instead, we have a highly politicized Economic Action Plan which puts all of our eggs into a bitumen basket, while ignoring the economic perils which lie ahead when the carbon bubble bursts.

Harper's Plan calls for a rise in tar sands production from 1.9 million barrels per day (2012) to more than 5 million barrels per day by 2035. In this scenario, Canada's bitumen will be exported to refineries in Asia and the U.S., where value-added processing will take place. Pipelines must be built to move the bitumen to tidewater ports.

The Joint Review Panel, which recommended approval of Northern Gateway, subject to 209 conditions, didn't bother to assess greenhouse gas emissions in its report, deeming climate change issues to be beyond its scope of review. The panel's report, which the Harper government relied on to approve Gateway, trumpeted the perceived economic benefits of tar sands expansion, while ignoring associated climate-related costs. The Enbridge decision was based on both bad science and bad economics.

At Copenhagen in 2009, the global community, including Canada, committed to holding global warming at 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold at which the best available science has warned we dare not exceed. Stephen Harper further pledged to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions 17% from 2005 levels by the year 2020.

Environment Canada data shows that we're not on track to achieve our emissions reductions target, despite some pretty heavy lifting done by Ontario by ending coal-fired power generation. All of the Canada's "wins" at reducing emissions have been wiped out by uncontrolled tar sands growth.

Although Harper doesn't take the climate crisis seriously, other nations are. Canada's day of reckoning for our lack of action on curbing emissions is just around the corner. Recently, in Montreal, Christine Lagarde, head of the International

Monetary Fund, rebuked governments, saying, "We are subsidizing the very behaviour that is destroying our planet, and on an enormous scale".

When that reckoning comes, regions such as Ontario may be forced to do more than their fair share to reduce emissions in order to offset the tar sands. Energy-intensive industrial projects, such as the Ring of Fire, may be jeopardized in a last-ditch bid to live up to our international commitments. Northern Ontario's dream of a value-added stainless steel industry built around Ring of Fire chromite may need to be sacrificed so that we can continue shipping raw bitumen to Asia. A smarter idea would be to slow the growth of the tar sands as part of a national economic and climate strategy. Generous public subsidies to rich multinational oil companies need to come to an end. A real national energy strategy should promote Canada's long-term energy security, rather than making a quick buck by exporting raw resources.

In a world which finally gets serious about the climate crisis, all of Canada's regions will find themselves at risk should we continue along our present, dangerous path. Northern Ontario could end up being the biggest loser from Canada's so-called Economic Action Plan.

Steve May is an officer of the federal and provincial Nickel Belt Greens.

May: North could be loser in Gateway approval