Discussions are ongoing after the Koper Lake and McFauld Lake blockades ended.

April 15, 2010: Volume 37 #8, Page A1

“We agreed to work on agreements,” said Marten Falls Chief Eli Moonias. “There is a timeframe of six months to address issues that were identified at the very beginning of the blockade. The issues are not resolved, not yet. In good faith while we talk we lifted the blockade.”

Moonias said the main mining exploration companies as well as the provincial government have agreed to discuss the issues brought up by his community and Webequie when the blockades were initially established on the Ring of Fire mining exploration area in the James Bay Lowlands this past February. The blockades ended March 19.

“The airport permitting is one of the issues,” Moonias said. “There is an environmental screening exercise that is holding it up right now.”

The land-based landing strip project located near Koper Lake that Marten Falls had been involved in was halted in 2009 after complaints over environmental concerns.

During the Koper Lake-McFauld Lake blockade, Moonias said the environmental groups had complained about a disturbance of caribou herd migration routes and other concerns.

“Because of that they wanted the environmental screening of the proposed airport site,” Moonias said this past February. “That is what precipitated this action, originally the actions of the environmentalists.”

Moonias said his community is also concerned about the effects of using both Koper Lake and McFaulds Lake as landing strips.

“The two lakes are used as airports in the winter and summer and there is a lot of spillage there on the shore,” Moonias said. “There are fuel transfers taking place there. The camp at McFaulds, which is right on the shore, there was a lot of damage there while it was there. It’s still there, by the way. They were dumping sewage into the lake, and greywater and there was a lot of petro-carbons, gas, oil spillage. It was on the muskeg, right on the shore of the lake.”

Moonias said his community was looking for the mining exploration companies to employ and train community members in the exploration activities taking place in the Ring of Fire.

Noront has resumed drilling

“What they say is they can’t train anybody because it is a very competitive industry,” Moonias said, explaining while the companies said they don’t have time to train community members, the communities currently do not have any community members who have been trained for mining exploration work. “What we are saying is you have to try, to get training done and employ our people.”

Moonias said plans for the transportation corridor from the Ring of Fire to Nakina were done without input from or direct consultations with the communities involved.

“They were planning this corridor without our input,” Moonias said. “The company doing that was not consulting us directly, they were consulting Matawa (First Nations), but Matawa is a corporate structure, a tribal council. We told them you had to talk to us directly, but they refused to do that.

“They went ahead with the corridor work.”

Moonias said the company working on the transportation corridor took advantage of a leak in the blockade by using a landing strip on a nearby lake.

“They are sampling the ground, to see how it will sustain the rail road, to see how the ground will hold up,” Moonias said.

“They are doing that with old mining act permits, which is illegal because they are supposed to be looking for minerals, not gravel.”

Moonias said the company is using a loophole in the old mining act.

“They get away from the environmental screening by doing so,” Moonias said. “We asked our friends in the environmental groups to go and shut them down like they shut us down in the airport project. But they couldn’t because they are not under MNR (Ministry of Natural Resources) rules.”

Meanwhile, Noront Resources Ltd. announced in a March 30 press release that it had resumed drilling and exploration at its McFaulds Lake project.

“We are very pleased to resume active exploration at McFaulds Lake,” said Noront CEO Wes Hanson. “In the coming months, our focus will be directed towards increasing the 11.2 million tonne indicated and inferred resource at Eagle’s Nest disclosed on March 9. The deep drills we are currently mobilizing will allow us to test below the 2,000-metre elevation. Geophysical surveys are underway at AT-12 with the objective of identifying a nickel, copper sulphide system similar to the Eagle’s Nest.”

Noront also reported it is continuing discussions with Marten Falls and Webequie with the goal of developing and cultivating stronger ties with both communities.

“Noront is committed to establishing strong working relationships with the First Nations communities of the Ring of Fire,” Hanson said. “We will be introducing numerous initiatives aimed at assisting the communities in benefitting from the development of the Ring of Fire.

“We continue to work collaboratively with the provincial government on this and other important matters.”

Noront also stated it is currently finalizing contracts and the scope of work for a feasibility study on the Eagle’s Nest project, which will be focused on early production and revenue from the initial development of the Eagle’s Nest deposit.

Although the key focus is the development of the Eagle’s Nest Ni-Cu-PGE deposit, synergies with the Blackbird chromite deposit will be evaluated as the study proceeds and considered in more detail if warranted.

“I am very pleased with the interest that we have received from world class engineering and construction companies in assisting us with the development of our projects,” said Paul Semple, Noront’s chief operating officer. “We look forward to finalizing our engineering team in the near future and quickly advancing our projects to the feasibility stage later this year.”

The provincial government announced in the 2010 Ontario budget that it will provide $45 million over three years for a new project-based skills training program to help Aboriginal peoples and northern Ontarians to participate in and benefit from emerging economic development opportunities, including in the Ring of Fire which potentially has large deposits of minerals such as chromite, nickel, copper and platinum.

The program is designed to help develop capacity in the north to undertake base mapping, develop resource inventories and gather other information to support community-based land-use planning and environmentally sustainable development that benefits Aboriginal peoples, northern Ontarians and Ontario as a whole.

The provincial government also stated it would appoint a Ring of Fire co-ordinator to work and consult with Aboriginal peoples, northern Ontarians and the mining community to encourage responsible and sustainable economic development related to the Ring of Fire.