The Hollinger Citizens Advisory Committee will be meeting Tuesday March 29, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. at the Police Services Boardroom and judging from the presentation to council by Don Burke, the mine manager and Brendan Zuidema there will be plenty on the table to discuss.
Chair Rick Dubeau indicated the main source of concern for residents in the Timmins, Schumacher and South Porcupine area was not the open pit itself but the truck noise along the private access road that brings gold laden ore to the Goldcorp’s Dome Milling facility.
“The work was mostly in the area of the 92 pit which has elevation of 3400 metre and near the Fairview Trailer Park,” Burke explained to Timmins Council when he and Zuidema appeared to provide a quarterly update.
According to Burke’s presentation to council on March 21, there were also complaints related to noise dust and blasting by residents living in the Fairway Village Trailer Park on the south side of the most active open pit - site 92.
The information presented by Burke covered the period from July to September and from October to December, 2015.
During that period there were 26 noise complaints. A total of 15 complaints were filed along Goldmine Road; nine from Schumacher and two from downtown Timmins
One was reported from Laidlaw Street, located on the west side of the open pit sandwiched between Brunette St. S., Railway St and the open pit.
There were no noise complaints from Fairway Village the location closest to where most of the blasting was taking place between October and December 2015.
Burke noted that 88 percent of the complaints originated with two nearby residents and 12 percent from three other residents.
As far as blasting was concerned three of the five complaints came from residents of Fairway Village which is nestled nearest to the larges pit on the site – Pit 92.
One complaint from Laidlaw Street and one from a downtown business.
Another from a downtown business. The third blasting complaint came from Laidlaw Street.
From the Schumacher side to the east emerged one complaint about dust.
Residents from Fairway Village did complain about the amount of particulate matter in the air at the northeast corner not far from the location of the old Gold Mine Tour Station at the former Shania Twain Centre.
There were also complaints from the trailer park about vibrations created by the blasting.
“The five vibration exceedances were caused because the readings were influenced by the historical underground mining in the area combined with the placement of monitoring equipment,” said Burke.
“We moved the censor and have had no more exceedances,” added.
Despite the high number of exceedances recorded by Porcupine Gold Mine, Burke was heartened by the remedial work that was done with the help of the complainants which lead to a sharp reduction in exceedances.
The number of noise exceedances recorded during October was 427, in November 416 that is when we were ramping up to two shifts per day,” said Burke. “In December there were 419 exceedances
“We got together with our partners and took remedial measures to bring the noise levels down,” Burke noted. “In January exceedances were down from 419 to 121; in February it went down to 99 and to date in March, 2016 we have had 81 exceedances.”
Rick Dubeau, the chair of the Hollinger Pit Citizens Advisory Committee and also one of the four councillors representing the area in Timmins’ Mega Ward 5 wanted to know which garnered the most complaints the open pit or the access road that hauls ore from the pit to the Dome milling site in South Porcupine.
Burke did not hesitate in responding.
“The most exceedances were near Claimpost in Gold Centre along the haul road,” he said. “The day time limit is 50 decibels (dB) and at night time 45 dB.”
“All exceedances have been at night around 46 dB at night,” Burke added.
Porcupine Gold Mine has since decided to mitigate the noise by constructing louvers and baffles to attenuate the noise.
In addition, in the hopes of encourage employees to operate their vehicles properly Porcupine Gold Mine has decide to implement an incentive program
“If the operator is revving his engine it can go just beyond the 45 dB,” explained Burke.
“We are keeping tabs of who has the fewest exceedances,” said Burke. “At the end of the month the crew with the fewest will be rewarded with pizzas.”
“We are going to work harder and more diligently to reduce the noise,” he concluded.