November 23, 2010
Quebec asbestos mine tailings to be studied
Canadian OH&S News
THETFORD MINES, Que. (Canadian OH&S News)
Researchers have begun studying whether massive mounds of asbestos mine tailings in and around the Quebec town of Thetford Mines could get a new lease on life, but concerns persist about the safety of mining the mounds.
Natural Resources Canada (NRC) has invested $600,000 toward two detailed studies of the physical and chemical properties of the town’s mining sites “in an effort to identify potential innovative waste-management opportunities,” the federal department notes in a statement.
The research will help define opportunities to grow vegetation on the waste piles and identify minerals and metals of economic interest, such as magnesium and nickel, for the purpose of “sustainable” extraction, the department adds. The work began at the end of this summer and should be wrapped up by fall of 2011, says Jacinthe Perras, an NRC spokeswoman.
Nathan Cullen, New Democrat natural resources critic and MP for the British Columbia riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley, says he is concerned that disturbing the asbestos-containing mounds to access buried minerals would pose considerable health risks to the surrounding community.
He also questions why public money, rather than mining company resources, is being spent on rehabilitating the waste piles. “I don’t know why the liability transfers over to the public.”
But Thetford Mines’ mayor, Luc Berthold, counters that the mounds can be mined safely using existing dust-suppression techniques, and adds that the city would ensure safety is at the heart of any future projects.
Indeed, Perras says the field work associated with the research “will be managed under controlled conditions. The sampling process poses no adverse impacts to the employees involved or the general public, as only very small quantities will be extracted to avoid any disturbance to the site.”
Utilization of mounds would be positive: mayor
Berthold welcomes the NRC studies and says it would be positive for the community if the mounds could be utilized. “It’s an economic issue for us because there are a lot of minerals in the piles,” he says, adding that rising mineral prices have made the waste more attractive to the mining industry.
Continued asbestos mining in the Thetford Mines area, which focuses on the chrysotile variety of asbestos fibre, has been under siege for years. Health, labour and environmental groups have been fighting to have chrysotile blacklisted under the Rotterdam Convention, an international agreement on pesticides and industrial chemicals. Attempts to do so in 2006 and 2008, however, did not succeed.
In a position statement calling for the end of chrysotile mining and exporting, the Canadian Public Health Association notes that “the scientific consensus today is that all types of asbestos fibres, including chrysotile, cause asbestosis, lung cancer and other cancers, most specifically mesothelioma.”
Quebec’s public health agency, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, reports that “the experience in Quebec shows that there are serious difficulties in enforcing the recommended measures for the safe use of asbestos.”
The Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, which supports the safe, responsible and controlled use of the substance, says a ban would have severe economic impacts in parts of Quebec.
“We are talking here about at least 700 direct jobs and approximately 2,000 indirect jobs,” Clément Godbout, president of the institute, says in a statement. “What will happen to those regions? To the quality of life in their communities? To the people who lose their jobs?”
