16 LEXPERT
|
2017/18
|
WWW.LEXPERT.CA
PHOTO:
REUTERS
COMPANIES WORLDWIDE are having to
change the way they do business in order to miti-
gate the effects of climate change on their oper-
ations. e mining industry in this country is a
prime example. In Canada's far north, says Dennis
Mahony, a partner at Torys LLP in Toronto, mines
are already having to adapt to the effects of climate
change on their infrastructure.
"Look at what's happening with what we once
called 'permafrost,'" says Mahony, co-chair of the
firm's interdisciplinary climate change and emis-
sions trading practice. "ere is an awful lot of
waste rock contained in frozen tailings dams in
the far north. Melting ground threatens the sta-
bility of those storage structures, and it increases
the likelihood that acid and heavy metals from the
waste will leak into the surrounding soil and water,
causing major ecological damage."
e same is true of other aspects of mining in
the far north that assume predictably long, cold
winters, adds Mahony. Winter roads over frozen
lakes and rivers, for example, have been used for
generations to bring in heavy equipment, workers
and supplies to mines. ose passageways are now
freezing later, thawing earlier and less stable even
at the height of winter because of material average
temperature increases. "As a result, mining compa-
nies are forced to seek oen expensive alternatives
to bring in their equipment and people," he says,
"including flying them in."
Changing modes of transportation also have
a direct effect on a mine's carbon footprint, says
Adam Chamberlain, a partner with Borden Lad-
ner Gervais LLP in Toronto and head of the firm's
Team North Group. As a result, mines are having
to not only consider and manage increasing costs,
they are also having to deal with design issues re-
lated to subsiding permafrost that were not a real-
ity even 10 or 20 years ago. "e environment is
changing ; and those living and doing business in
CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTING
TO CLIMATE
CHANGE
MINING COMPANIES
ARE STARTING TO
LEARN THAT CLIMATE
CHANGE WILL
UNDERMINE THEIR
OWN OPERATIONS.
MANY ARE WORKING
NOW TO SAVE
THEMSELVES
FROM ENORMOUS
FUTURE COSTS
BY BEV CLINE
