Mining for Closure: Policies, practises and guidelines for sustainable mining and closure of mines

A number of the key recommendations from Part V of the report are provided in Box 5 below for ref- erence. They include a short list of possible compo- nents or options for a federal and provincial legis- lative/regulatory approach to facilitating voluntary abandoned mine land abatement, remediation, and reclamation. innovative thinking The following sections offer examples in order to spur new ideas and creativity for readers of this document. They should also serve to dem- onstrate that options may well be available for management of abandoned and orphaned mine sites, or for the ongoing developed land use with passive or active care that is required to maintain sites that can never be returned to a self sustain- ing state. These examples should also be viewed in the light of the examples provided in previous sections regarding the securing of funding and the removal or amelioration of institutional bar- riers. 5.2.1 alternative site applications To provide a firm basis for thinking, a number of case study examples are briefly documented here. Important to most of these is that they need to combine most or all of the following key param- eters (after Reichardt, 2002): the use of redundant mining and associated infrastructure as zero or low cost assets for new business ventures the development of business structures and operations in a way that capitalises on the characteristics of the redundant infrastructure, thereby conveying a competitive advantage for the new business, the active participation of the mining com- pany or its agents in the establishment and commercial stabilization of the new business along purely commercial lines. the acceptance by the mining company or par- ty responsible for the site that such businesses yield tangible if not immediately quantifiable benefits. These first five case studies are taken from a paper produced by the Manager: Corporate Environmen- tal Affairs, AngloGold Ltd. in South Africa (Rei- • • • • 5.2 examples for

States explicitly addressing several of these sub- jects. In comparison, he indicates that national legislation in the United Kingdom and state legis- lation in Australia is in its infancy in addressing these matters. His overall findings are interesting in the context of this paper. Not least, as jurisdic- tions in SEE will be able to follow a considerable body of work that needs to be addressed. Overall, however, the current legislative and regu- latory regime in Canada is at best a patch-work, at worst indifferent to the problem. In most in- stances, legislators simply have not turned their attention to orphaned/abandoned mines to pro- duce a principled and comprehensive solution to the problem. Some current laws are broadly worded in terms of providing regulation-mak- ing authority that could be a basis for measures that could facilitate voluntary cleanups without requiring amendments to existing legislation. However, the better view may be that both the Parliament of Canada and provincial legislatures also will have to speak directly to the problem (Castrilli, 2002, p.ii) Amend existing or enact new law that en- courages volunteers to abate, remediate, and reclaim abandoned mine lands, Exempt volunteers from being “responsible persons” under contaminated site, water pollution, or related laws as a result of carry- ing out “good samaritan” remediation, Establish an abandoned mine reclamation “good samaritan” permit programme, which would require permittees to specify reclama- tion plans and meet certain standards for cleanup, ensure public participation, and en- vironment ministry oversight of cleanups, Require remining operators to implement strategies that control pollutant releases and ensure that pollutant discharges during remining activities are less than the pollutant levels released from the abandoned site prior to remining, Create exemptions from remediation liability at “historic mine sites”, and Adoption of collaborative opportunities un- der federal and provincial environmental and mining laws in Canada. • • • • • • Box 5 Legislative and regulatory adjustments to sup- port mine legacy management after Castrilli (2002)

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MINING FOR CLOSURE