Issue

Canadians want just and sustainable development not fake lakes and abuse of Aboriginal rights! The federal review panel on the proposed Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine has released its final report. It has concluded that the project, if approved, would have significant and lasting negative effects, and represent a significant loss to the area's First Nations.

(Update) Bill C-300 - a "responsible mining bill" - goes to a vote in the House of Commons in September or October. See a video on what it's about and who's supporting it - and use a sample letter of support to join in promoting it.

Canada is the largest exporter of uranium ore in the world. Northern Saskatchewan is home to all of Canada’s uranium mines. Roughly half of the supply of uranium comes from mining; the balance comes from decommissioned nuclear weapons.

Uranium is mined in open pit and underground mines, sometimes along with copper and gold, and also by in-situ leaching. In-situ leaching requires pumping acid or alkaline solution underground and trying to recover the resulting solution once it contains enough uranium.

Quarrying and aggregates (sand and gravel mining) are a huge environmental and social problem in many parts of the world and many parts of Canada. However, since the policy and legal issues are mostly local (municipal and provincial) MiningWatch Canada does not usually get involved. We have picked up on some cases, however, where federal environmental assessments or aboriginal lands are at issue.

Because lakes and rivers are fish habitat, they are protected by the Fisheries Act. This Act is Canada's oldest environmental legislation and prohibits the release of deleterious substances into fish-bearing waters and the alteration or destruction of fish habitat. However, in 2002, Schedule 2 was added to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulation. Schedule 2 essentially allows for re-classifying any natural water body that gets listed on it as a tailings impoundment area. Once a lake or river gets listed, it is no longer considered a natural water body and no longer protected by the Fisheries Act.

Major mineral sands reserves are found in South Africa, USA, Sierra Leone, India, Australia and Madagascar. The most popular mining methods are dredging or dry mining. Dredging involves working in artificial ponds and pumping ore to floating concentrators whereas dry mining uses a variety of scrapers, bulldozers, excavators and front end loaders.

Until April 2009, most of the pollutants caused by extractive phase of mining were not included in the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI).

Mining affects every aspect of a community in a myriad of ways, affecting the economy, the environment, families, health, land use, water, etc. This section provides a number of documents that address the impact of mining on communities.

Gold is often co-mined with copper, molybdenum and uranium. Main reserves of gold can be found in South Africa, Tanzania, Mali, Ghana, USA, Australia, Canada, China, Chile, Peru, and Brazil. Gold is extracted via large scale open pit mining or underground mining.

Gold mining produces a large amount of waste. Up to 6 tonnes of rock must be processed to obtain one gram of gold. Cyanide or mercury are the most common substances used to extract gold from the rock.

When a mining company wants a specific mineral, it has to remove rock to get at it. Only a small amount of rock – ore – will contain the mineral that the company wants. With open pit or open cast mining, the soil, vegetation, and rock above the ore body, called the overburden, must also be removed. Any other rock that is removed that does not contain "economic amounts" of mineral is called waste rock. Mining companies put this waste rock in piles or "dumps" (often measuring several square kilometres).