Researchers find gaps in environmental impact assessments of Canadian mining projects

Emily Baron Cadloff · The Canadian Press

· Posted: Nov 04, 2025 9:05 AM EST | Last Updated: November 4

A caller study from Dalhousie University shows flaws successful the biology reappraisal process for mining operations successful Canada, with researchers uncovering that information for 20 per cent of the projects they reviewed was incomplete oregon missing wholly from nationalist records.

The study collected each disposable biology interaction assessments connected mining projects dating backmost to 1974 — that's 266 assessments connected 227 projects implicit 50 years. However, researchers ran into problems. Some provinces, specified arsenic British Columbia, had a afloat digitized and accessible system; the records for different jurisdictions were overmuch harder to entree oregon simply not available.

Without implicit information from biology assessments, researchers aren't capable to decently justice however a excavation is impacting the surrounding community. And regulators can't found a baseline for measuring biology damage.

"When we're talking astir starting caller projects, determination are what's called 'cumulative effects,'" Alana Westwood, pb writer of the report, said successful a caller interview. "Pollution oregon contamination from a excavation tin physique up implicit time, reaching unsafe thresholds."

Passing thresholds tin pb to a taxon dying out, oregon to superior contamination of groundwater that tin permission communities without cleanable water, she said.

"If we don't person baseline data, we don't cognize wherever we started and we can't estimation oregon recognize the imaginable impacts."

N.S. gave $6,000 interest estimation to supply access

In 1 instance, researchers filed an entree petition with Nova Scotia for biology assessments done earlier the twelvemonth 2000. Nova Scotia started requiring situation assessments successful 1989, but anterior to 2000 they were recorded manually.

"We filed our (freedom of accusation request), and they told america it would outgo $6,000," says Ben Collison, a PhD pupil astatine Dalhousie and co-author of the report. "Our laboratory doesn't person $6,000 successful backing and years to hold for that to happen."

Alana Westwood is an subordinate prof astatine Dalhousie University's School for Resource and Environmental Studies. (Dan Jardine/CBC)

Westwood and Collison besides recovered that provincial and national biology assessments connected the aforesaid task didn't lucifer successful two-thirds of the cases they studied. The assessments looked astatine abstracted parts of the task oregon utilized antithetic terms, making it hard for researchers to get a afloat representation of the biology risks of the mine.

Canadian mining is simply a large industry, accounting for astir six per cent of the country's economy. But mining besides leaves a large footprint. The study shows determination could beryllium much than 10,000 abandoned mines crossed the state continuing to pollute the situation with nary oversight.

Several operational mines tally astatine a immense scale. The Star-Orion Diamond Project successful Saskatchewan, for example, is much than 850 times the size of the Rogers Centre successful Toronto. The full excavation is astir the size of the metropolis of Camrose, Alta.

Researchers' study publically available

Westwood says biology assessments are invaluable tools for mining projects, but the existent strategy is not being utilized effectively. Collison, meanwhile, says the provinces and the national authorities should beryllium amended aligned connected what elements of a task are to beryllium studied and connected what enactment should beryllium carried out.

However, Collison says governments should guarantee they aren't watering down regulations erstwhile provincial and national analyses are fast-tracked oregon streamlined.

"If that's the case, I deliberation we hazard making decisions that are not good informed by evidence."

Westwood and Collison person made their study publically disposable and searchable. They accidental they anticipation that by doing truthful they tin promote provinces to enactment unneurotic connected improving biology assessments.

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