BY JOAN BAXTER JULY 4, 2024
Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia, a subsidiary of Australia’s St Barbara Ltd that owns the first and so far only open pit gold mine in Nova Scotia, has appealed the reclamation plan and thus delayed the security it owes the province for its Touquoy mine in Moose River.
Word of the appeal is contained in a June 19, 2024 letter by Adrian Fuller, executive director of inspection, compliance and enforcement with Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change (NSECC), to a person who has asked to be identified only as an “interested Nova Scotian.”
In his letter, Fuller wrote that the province was “working with the company on a final reclamation plan for the site, and the final security amount is dependent on the final reclamation plan.”
“The company is required to pay the balance of $38.70 million by June 1, 2024,” Fuller wrote. “However, since they have appealed, enforcement of the term and condition relating to the security will be held in abeyance pending the Minister’s decision.”
The Halifax Examiner contacted NSECC to ask for details on what was appealed, and for confirmation that it was the 2023 reclamation plan and reclamation security amount of about $80 million that Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia (St Barbara) submitted to the province in May 2023.
NSECC spokesperson Lorena Casales confirms in an email to the Halifax Examiner that Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia / St Barbara “appealed the reclamation” to Environment and Climate Change Minister Timothy Halman on April 29, 2024. She notes that the reclamation was included in the industrial approval NSECC issued to St Barbara on March 28, 2024.
The Minister’s decision, dated July 2, 2024, was sent to the company July 2, Casales says. However, in her brief and carefully worded email, Casales does not say what the decision was, or specify any details of what exactly was appealed. If she does provide that information, we will update this article.
Concerned citizen’s struggle for information
The person to whom Fuller wrote the letter tells the Examiner that when the letter came, he had been trying for a year to get answers from the province about the reclamation security for the Touquoy mine. He says he was concerned that St Barbara’s financial position had weakened in 2022, after the company sold off its lucrative gold property in Australia, leaving it with just one troubled mine in Papua New Guinea and its operations in Nova Scotia.
The concerned citizen says he wrote numerous letters, filed three Freedom of Information (FOIPOP) requests, and even wrote directly to Premier Tim Houston seeking answers to his questions about the reclamation security.
Then finally came Fuller’s letter, written on behalf of Houston.
St Barbara denies appealing the reclamation bond
That St Barbara would appeal the reclamation plan or security is perplexing, to say the least, as the mining company itself submitted both of them to the province.
But it turns out to be more complicated than one might expect.
Atlantic Mining NS / St Barbara spokesperson Erik Nolan denies that the company has appealed the reclamation bond. In an email, Nolan writes:
We acknowledge your request for comment; however, your sources are incorrect as Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia (AMNS) has not launched an appeal in relation to the reclamation bond amount.
However, Nolan did not deny AMNS has appealed the reclamation plan.
The reclamation security puzzle
On May 31 2023, St Barbara announced that it had submitted an updated reclamation plan and security estimate to NSECC and DNRR for the Touquoy mine, which went into production in 2017, and ceased operations last year.
Based on earlier reclamation plans, St Barbara had already posted reclamation security of $41.2 million for the mine, which is where it stood in 2021, and where it remains as of this writing.
However, based on the 2023 reclamation plan it submitted to the province, the estimated cost of reclaiming the Touquoy mine with its massive open pit, mountains of waste rock and tailings facility, is nearly double that, at $80 million. Hence the outstanding balance of $38.7 million.
In its announcement, St Barbara said that if NSECC and DNRR accepted the reclamation security estimate, the company would be required to pay a “bank guarantee, or bank guarantees, for the additional Bond” of about $39 million, which it would have to source to “provide cash backing for the bank guarantees.”
And yet now we learn from Fuller’s letter that Atlantic Mining NS / St Barbara is appealing the reclamation plan in the latest industrial approval, which of course includes the reclamation bond amount.
Puzzling indeed.
No earlier hint of delay in the security payment
This was not the Examiner’s first inquiry to NSECC and the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR) about the status of the Touquoy mine, and the reclamation process.
In response to questions sent on April 29, 2024, DNRR spokesperson Erin Lynch replied :
Touquoy Mine is not in care and maintenance, nor is it in operation – the site is preparing for closure. The company’s current Industrial Approval requires it to maintain reclamation security in the value of no less than $79.9 million and to post the balance by June 1, 2024. The reclamation security is held by the Province, issued by a credible third party, and not accessible by the company or creditors. If a company defaults on their reclamation obligations, the Province can access the funds to reclaim the site. Security is paid through cash, letter of credit, or surety – for business confidentiality reasons, it would not be appropriate for us to share the form used by a company.
The Examiner then asked NSECC for clarification on the deadline for the reclamation process of at the Touquoy mine, whether it is 2028, when Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia has to submit a post-reclamation plan to NSECC, or if it’s 2034, when the current industrial approval expires.
On May 3, NSECC spokesperson Kristin Matthews replied:
The reclamation process and deadline is dependent upon, and will be informed by, the results of multiple studies which the company is working on now. At this time, the current Industrial Approval expires in 2034; if reclamation is not complete by then a new approval will be required. The Province’s role is to make sure the company complies fully with all legal requirements for the reclamation under the Environment Act and the Mineral Resources Act. Questions about the company’s reclamation plans and process should be directed to the company.
Neither of these replies hints that there was any appeal of the reclamation or delay in the payment of the outstanding balance of the reclamation security, as Fuller reports there is in his June 19 letter.
So when will St Barbara pay up?
In our inquiry to St Barbara, the Examiner asked if the appeal had anything to do with the company’s recent announcement that it would be looking at developing a renewable energy project with Natural Forces at the closed Touquoy gold mine.
In his email answer, Nolan writes:
The potential for a closed-loop hydro system at the Touquoy mine site isn’t relevant to any bonding amount considerations. Reclamation works have already begun at the Touquoy site and AMNS has budgeted in excess of $15 million dollars to further those works in 2024-25.
We are excited for the possibilities that could be realized from providing renewable energy to the Province of Nova Scotia, but we need to wait for the results of the feasibility study to be completed in conjunction with our partners at Natural Forces.
However, Nolan does not answer another question we asked him about the waste rock the company had temporary permission from NSECC to store in the Touquoy open pit, and whether the waste rock has now been removed.
The Examiner tried again for answers, writing back to Nolan and asking if the outstanding $38.7 million had been paid to the province, if so when, if not why not, and when would it be paid.
As of publication we have not had a reply.
A blemished record
Although its Touquoy mine is no longer operational, and St Barbara has no other proposed mines undergoing environmental assessment in the province at this point, the company seems to have no intention of leaving Nova Scotia any time soon, at least not according to its own publications.
St Barbara continues to tell investors about its big plans for gold mines on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. It still seems intent on opening a four-pit mine at Fifteen Mile Stream in the Liscomb Game Sanctuary, and a single pit mine at Beaver Dam, and the company continues its controversial gold explorations at Cochrane Hill near the St. Mary’s River.
In 2022, St Barbara’s Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia earned itself a place of shame on Canada’s “Environmental Offenders Registry” after it pled guilty to charges laid under the Fisheries Act, for which it was fined $125,000, and under Nova Scotia’s Environment Act, for another $125,000 fine.
In all those years, the companies paid just $17 million to the federal government in corporate tax, $8.7 million to the province in royalties, and not one single penny of corporate tax to Nova Scotia.
Yet this hasn’t stopped St Barbara from quibbling over the reclamation plan for Touquoy, and thus the payment deadline for the reclamation security attached to it.