The incidental take of birds covered by the Migratory Birds Convention Act was estimated for activities undertaken in the mining sector. The scope of the analysis covered most of common mining activities, with the exception of oil sands extraction. The assessment looked at metals and mineral extraction, aggregate mining and quarrying, and peat extraction.
There was virtually no IT identified as being associated with peat extraction because the main activity that has the potential to cause IT – the stripping of the vegetation layer at the beginning of operations – is often done in winter, while the removal of the upper peat layer to expose the mineable peat often takes place in late summer or fall. Once a bog is in production, it is inhospitable for birds and so there is no IT involved.
In the case of metals and mineral extraction, there is a meaningful level of IT. There was a considerable level of uncertainty in the estimates of IT associated with mining, so that high and low estimates were generated. The range of these estimates is very likely to include the actual value, in the opinion of the author. The variables with the greatest uncertainty were:
• The proportion of land clearing that takes place during nesting season; and
• The amount of land cleared annually, which is primarily associated with the expansion of open pit facilities.
There was a considerable variation in the estimate of the mine footprints between B.C.
Saskatchewan and Ontario, however the author has considerable confidence in the numbers because all values were derived from data in the case of B.C. and from extensive discussions with government and industry staff in the sector, in the case of Saskatchewan and Ontario. Thus, if the amount of IT is near the upper end of the metal mining estimate, then pits and quarries operations produce roughly the same level of IT as metal mining does. However, the low end estimate of IT associated with metals mining is approximately 15% of the estimated IT associated with pits and quarries.
In the case of pits and quarries, two sources of IT were identified – the clearing of the land to establish or enlarge a pit (vegetation removal and overburden stripping) and the extraction of the material that can cause IT to killdeer and bank swallows. There were some data available which were used to base the estimates of bank swallow mortality on, however the author does not have a great deal of confidence in these data since they are based on a relatively small sample size. Key variables which have a significant amount of uncertainty associated with them include:
• The average number of nests in a colony;
• The number of colonies per pit;
• The percentage of pits that have operations and mortality in them in any given year; and
• Rates of colony destruction.
High and low estimates were not developed because there were data available, however as mentioned above, the author is not highly confident of the precision of the values however he believes they are within reasonable range of true values.
All Mining Pits &
Quarries
High
Mining Est High
SUM Low Est
Mining Low Nfld, NS, NB, Que & SUM
MB 33887 59221 93108 7896 41783
Ontario 49876 25974 75850 3463 53339
Saskatchewan 993 745 1738 186 1179
Alberta 7169 887 8056 221 7390
British Columbia 33604 32453 66057 6722 40326
Territories 0 488 488 165 165
SUM 125529 119768 245297 18653 144182
T able 1. E s timated Incidental T ake in C anada due to Aggregate P it Operations .
Introduction
The inadvertent destruction of birds and/or their nests and young occurs in Canada during otherwise legitimate operations in a variety of sectors, including forestry, mining, agriculture, electrical generation and transmission, fishing, roadside maintenance and road construction. Such
"incidental take" is an important factor in bird conservation and management, and Environment Canada has identified a need to better understand the magnitude and significance of the issue.
This report documents a research and modeling effort to estimate the magnitude of avian
mortality due to activities associated with mining across Canada, for species that breed in Canada and are covered under the Migratory Birds Convention Act (MBCA). The MBCA does not protect raptors, corvids, blackbirds, or gallinaceous birds, among others not specifically listed in the Convention.
In consultation with the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) project authority, the scope for this project has been defined as coverage of mining or extracting from the earth the following materials:
• metallic ore, including precious and industrial metals;
• coal and uranium;
• potash;
• diamonds;
• clay, sand, gravel and aggregates; and
• miscellaneous materials such as salt, gypsum and peat.
Oil sands mining is excluded from this study (it is part of another study in the same series).
The activities associated with mining begin with prospecting, or early stage exploration. This is often done using airborne detectors, however there are still elements of ground-based work involved, especially once a localized area has been identified as being of interest. Once a potential deposit of interest has been identified, the land is claimed or staked and further work is undertaken to determine the location, extent and grade of the deposit. There are many factors that influence the economic attractiveness of a project, and the activities associated with resource delineation and the development of a mine plan may easily take five years or more. If the deposit appears to be physically and economically feasible to extract, and a major facility is required, an environmental assessment (EA) will be undertaken. An EA is also generally required for the major expansion of an existing mine. Once the EA has been successfully completed, the facility is constructed. The nature of the facility depends on the location, characteristics of the deposit and mode of extraction, material being extracted, and such, however access roads and power lines are often constructed, as well as the physical mine site, tailings ponds and on-site processing facilities. The mine footprint is strongly influenced by whether the operation is an open pit mine or whether it is constructed underground, or is a combination of the two approaches.
Incidental take may be associated with all stages of mining, and it will most often be associated with land clearing for roads, drill site, resource sampling, and the construction of the mine site and related infrastructure. We do not here consider incidental caused by collisions with mining vehicles or mine infrastructure; those sources of IT would be considered to fall into other components of IT which have been studied separately.
In the case of aggregate pits (note there are pits for the production of sand, gravel, and aggregate, and quarries for stone – these shall collectively be referred to as aggregate pits), there is also exploratory activity but it is generally more limited and does not involve as much land clearing as in the case of metals and minerals. When a pit or quarry is developed, there is also often no environmental assessment unless it is especially large or in an especially sensitive setting.
Aggregate pits are attractive nesting sites for killdeer and bank swallows also may nest in the steep sites of a pit. Therefore, the major activities that could produce incidental take associated with pits and quarries are the land clearing for pit establishment and enlargement, and activities associated with the operation of an existing pit where bank swallows have nested in the face of the pit side and/or killdeer have nested in the pit itself.
In summary, the operations considered in this analysis are:
Metals and Minerals
Activities: Exploration, deposit appraisal, mine and mine-related infrastructure construction, and mine operation/expansion. Mine-related
infrastructure may include access roads, power lines and dams, space for the facilities, and other operations (e.g. a small lake was moved to provide access to the Ekati mine in Northwest Territories).
Includes coal, potash, uranium and diamonds as well as base metals and precious metals. Most of the coal, potash, uranium and diamond mines are open pit mines, but there are some that are underground (e.g.
Snap Lake – diamonds; Cigar Lake - uranium) a. Similarly, just more than half of the existing and under development metal mines in B.C.
are open pit; the remainder are below ground.
Aggregates
Activities: The activities covered include the removal of the surface vegetation and overburden to start a pit or expand an existing pit and the annual operations in existing pits.
P eat
Activities: The primary activities of interest are the preparation of the peat bogs for extraction – operations include felling any trees, creating a series of drainage ditches to dry out the peat deposit, and the stripping of the surface vegetation. In recent years, operators have begun to mix the surface vegetation into the peat deposit (excluding trees) rather than remove it. Once the peat deposit has been prepared, the peat is removed gradually over a period of years.
The mining industry, including harvesters of peat and companies that remove sand, stone, and aggregate, are required to rehabilitate spent mines, pits and quarries. There is considerable scrutiny to ensure that rehabilitation is undertaken well, and this will restore habitat to the mine site once the rehabilitation work is established. While many companies do a good job at this, this does not offset the calculation of incidental take in this study, which is concerned with the mortality caused by initial and on-going operations.
Mining operations often take place in very remote areas and mining is often seen as a means for developing or opening up an area. As indicated above, mines have substantial power needs, as well as a need for road and sometimes rail access. As a result, governments may undertake major regional infrastructure projects to support mining. There are currently several such projects being undertaken in Canada by provincial and territorial governments that are designed to provide access and power to remote areas that are known to have major mineral reserves (Canadian Intergovernmental Working Group on the Mining Industry, 2010):
• The extension of Highway 167 in northern Quebec: in its March 2009 budget, the Quebec government announced the $130 million extension of Highway 167 from Chibougamau to the Otish Mountains. The extended highway will facilitate access to projects such as Renard (diamonds), Matoush (uranium), and Macleod Lake (copper-molybdenum).
• The Northwest Transmission Line (NTL) in northwestern British Columbia: on September 16, 2009, the federal government announced a $130 million commitment to help build the 335-km NTL. Part of the remaining $274 million, from a total cost of $404 million, would come from private industry, but the Government of British Columbia, which has committed to build the NTL, would bear the largest costs with a contribution that could reach a reported $250 million. Upon completion, the NTL would improve the economics of a number of significant mining projects in northwestern British Columbia, including Galore Creek, Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell, and Schaft Creek.
• The Bathurst Inlet Port and Road (BIPR) project in Nunavut: this proposed deep-water port and permanent all-weather road would foster mineral exploration and production in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut by reducing transportation costs associated with projects in this area and by lengthening the trucking season. A 50-50 joint venture between Kitikmeot Corporation and Nuna Logistics, the BIPR would be financed through a public-private partnership. Its Environmental Impact Statement is currently on hold with the Nunavut Impact Review Board. Examples of projects that could benefit from the BIPR include Hope Bay (gold); Izok Lake, NICO, Hackett River, and High Lake (all base metals); Gahcho Kue (diamonds); and Thor Lake (REE).
Because these projects are not being undertaken solely to support mining, the incidental take associated with them is considered to come under the powerline and road construction and maintenance categories, and not mining.