Mining and metals, Canada Register of EHSC legal requirements for a potash mine

Summary

EEM reviewed the typical life cycle of a potash mining project – from exploration to closure – and developed a register of all the applicable legal requirements for Environment, Health and Safety, and Community relations (EHSC).

Approach and Solution

Rather than presenting the requirements as a listing of Acts and regulations, EEM organized the register by activity to facilitate the understanding of the legal requirements by operational managers. To ensure all the activity was covered, EEM reviewed the life cycle of a typical mining project and defined six phases:

• Exploration,
• Land Tenure,
• Mine Planning,
• Construction and Mine Development,
• Operation of the Mine, and
• Mine Closure.

Each phase was then broken down into activities taking into account the facility equipment, use and location.

The register is set up on the web platform, Nimonik, which uses the latest EHSC regulations available on CanLii. Nimonik provides access to multiple users and has a multitude of features to ease management of EHSC compliance.

The collaboration between EEM and Nimonik continues for the upkeep of the register: Nimonik provides continual update bulletins on changes to EHSC legislation while EEM makes consequent changes to the register. EEM also monitors changes to the mining projects to ensure any new activity is covered by the register.

Results

The operational managers now have access to the legal requirements presented in a way that readily corresponds to the activity under their management and allows them to identify the impacts. This meets the requirements of management system standards such as ISO 14001 without difficulty.