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Sandy Pond, located on the south side of Long Harbour in Placentia Bay
(located approximately 127 km from St. John’s) is one of eleven water
bodies in Canada slated to become a dumps for mining and mineral
processing wastes. According to the assessment document accepted by
Newfoundland and Labrador's Ministry of Environment and Conservation,,
Sandy Pond is to be damned as a receptacle for wastes from a nickel
processing plant, the Inco Hydrometallurgical (Hydromet) Processing
Plant.
The proposed plant will cost $800 million to build and will process
approximately 110 million pounds of nickel, five million pounds of
cobalt, and 15 million pounds of copper, and is part of the large
Voisy's Bay mining project.
The proposed nickel processing project may have severe and lasting
environmental impacts, including:
- destruction of Sandy Pond for the disposal of 381,000 tonnes per
year of nickel processing waste, including sulphur (approximately
60,000 tonnes per year), copper, and nickel;
- effluents totalling 3 million cubic metres per year will be
discharged to the marine environment; - during normal operations, 600
cubic metres (600,000 litres) per hour of water will be drawn from
Rattling Brook Big Pond;
- increased risk of accidents and displacement of fishers from
traditional fishing grounds caused by increased vessel traffic
Placentia Bay. With proposed projects such as a new refinery, proposed
LNG trans-shipment facility, and this nickel processing plant,
Placentia Bay will receive over 1300 vessels per year, or an average
of 7 ship transits per day.
For more details on the environmental assessment for the nickel
hydromet facility, including the EA document, please click
here. Also, the provincial
CBC Radio station has been running a series of stories on this
issue, which provides useful insight into this issue.
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Summary of Issue
