NunatsiaqOnline 2011-04-15: NEWS: Nunavut’s Mary River iron mine may end up twice as big: draft EISThe promoters of the Mary River iron mine in North Baffin have a plan for everything.
These plans are spelled out in volumes nine and 10 of their draft Environmental Impact Statement, which deal with their environmental, health and safety management systems and the mine’s cumulative effects.
This final portion of the draft EIS shows there’s also a high level uncertainty involved in the entire project as it’s presented in the EIS, which runs to more than 5,000 pages.
That’s because the Mary River mine, recently acquired from Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. by the steel—making giant ArcelorMittal, may expand to twice the size predicted in the draft EIS.
So, instead of mining 21 million tonnes of iron ore a year over 21 years, the mine would also grow to include rich nearby iron deposits, doubling its production and lasting many years longer.
If these deposits are developed, on land, this means emissions from waste incineration and dust could cumulatively affect local air quality, the draft EIS says.
As well, there could be effects on Arctic char health and condition habitat and some “direct mortality.”
“The credible development scenario of a doubling of production at Mary River” would also mean twice as much shipping. This would result in a ship transits every day along the southern and northern shipping routes, the draft EIS says.
This increase in shipping frequency would likely increase the potential for cumulative effects, increasing the likelihood that more than one ore carrier will be in a given area at the same time — so shipping could have more of an impact on marine mammals during the ice-covered season, and, during the open-water period, on whales and narwhals in Eclipse Sound and Milne Inlet.
There would also be an increase in temperatures in the immediate vicinity of the dock sites of the mine’s two ports.
And the amount of land-fast ice disrupted as a result of a larger mine “may conservatively be doubled.”
More ships in Steensby Port (and possibly Milne Port) could also lead to a doubling of the amount of ballast water released from ships.