Mineral Exploration

Winter 2013

Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.

Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/225045

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 104 of 119

Environmental best practices and exploration hand-in-hand: Kaminak Gold Corporation's Adam Fage and Craig Finnigan exploring at the Kona zone at the Coffee project. AM Responsibility on a budget A scalable approach to environmental best practices By Vivian Danielson M ineral projects often have several operators over time and they're all expected to be environmentally responsible. But first-on-theground exploration companies have the added responsibility of making a good first impression with limited resources. Many of them are turning to scalable best practices and tools to help add value to their projects and avoid conflicts with regulators and stakeholders. "A scalable approach means you can be environmentally responsible no matter if you're one person or a large company, and no matter the scale of the project," says Silvana Costa, chair of AME BC 's corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee and a co-ordinator of environmental and social responsibility for New Gold Inc. No exploration project is without environmental risk, and as the industry has seen, minor issues can escalate Photograph : Kaminak Gold Corporation p104-107_CSR.indd 105 to the point where multi-billion-dollar deposits are brutally devalued. Costa says small companies can do some of the same things as large companies to avoid such risks, albeit on a smaller scale and with a smaller budget. As a first step, Costa recommends the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada's e3 Plus: A Framework for Responsible Exploration as an easily accessible toolkit that small companies can use for guidance in the field. "Some juniors think it has too much information and is too complex, but even if they just stick to its basic principles, they should be able to do quite well." Allison Armstrong, director of lands and environment for Kaminak Gold, agrees that small companies can be environmentally proactive without breaking the bank. "One of the challenges of the past is that most consulting firms were used to doing environmental studies for advanced projects near production," Armstrong says. "A small company had to take the largerstudies model and try to make it fit their project, which wasn't easy to do. With the scalable approach, the studies would coincide with the level of work, and can be expanded as work progresses." As a former consultant with 14 years of permitting and environmental compliance experience, Armstrong encourages companies to start environmental baseline studies as early as possible, before drilling and work programs begin. Water quality studies and wildlife monitoring are great places to start, she adds, as these issues tend to attract the most public scrutiny – particularly in remote and northern areas. "A scalable approach means that if you have one drill turning, you don't go out and sample 20 lakes and streams, but you do sample the lake downstream of the rig," Armstrong says. "With wildlife, you can put up sighting sheets and ask everyone to keep track of what they see and where, and fill in the sheets with the details." w i n t e r 2 0 1 3      105 13-11-27 10:16 AM

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Mineral Exploration - Winter 2013