3 October 2016
News/North, Monday, October 3, 2016
I think we should limit the footprint of mining. I can't believe that, as one who makes his living from the mining industry, I'm writing this so please bear with me.
Canada has made international commitments to conserve 17 per cent of the country from development. The egalitarian might say then, OK, how about we limit development to the same amount, 17 per cent? That would be fair, wouldn't it?
For the sake of argument, how about we throw the whole model of conservation and development areas out the window?
Let's put forward the idea that the overall footprint of our operating mines should be really reined in. Let's go crazy and say the footprint of operating mines should be allowed to only occupy one per cent of the area of the NWT. Since somebody is picking numbers like 17 per cent conservation out of the air, let's use the same approach and pick a nice round number like one per cent. It would sound good to our international neighbours, wouldn't it? Hey, we have limited the physical footprint of our mines to a measly one per cent of our lands. How about you guys?
I can hear the cries already, and even from my own industry compatriots: Are you nuts? One per cent?!
But let's dig into this just a little bit deeper.
The footprint of Diavik, a medium sized mine, is 13 square kilometres. That of Ekati, our largest footprint, is 33 sq. km. Our newest diamond mine, Gahcho Kué, might comprise just over 12 sq. km. Let's add in Snap Lake and Cantung, which are no longer operating and will eventually be reclaimed (of course they all will be reclaimed in time, returning the land to wilderness, and their footprint to essentially zero).
So let's see, doing the math gives you, in round numbers, say 100 square kilometres for five mines. The area of the NWT is a whopping 1,346,106 square kilometres.
This makes the area of all of our existing mines then equal to … 0.007 per cent of the NWT. So with my ridiculously stingy concept to limit our operating mines' footprint to one per cent of the area of the NWT, it means we could have over 100 operating mines!
Hmmmm. I cannot see us ever having 100 operating mines. At any one time, we have only ever had half a dozen mines operating.
So it begs the question then, "Why do we have to protect so much land from development?" Farming, ranching, forestry, and new cities aren't huge possibilities, so in much of the NWT, the only development we are going to see is from mining.
There are some in government, and the green community, that are advocating for huge conservation areas, significantly more even than Canada's 17 per cent commitment. When you consider that a mine like Diavik will generate over $1 billion per square kilometre over its brief 20-year mine life before being reclaimed, it's hard to believe that anyone would want to compromise this kind of benefit by alienating huge amounts of land.
Maybe our leaders should think this through a bit more. For if they don't, it will cost us much lost opportunity … unnecessarily. Can we really afford that? I say NO!
