The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Air pollution, soil erosion, forest fire and logging have made life difficult for vegetation in the Flin Flon area. Not only have those factors damaged trees and other forms of plant life, they have also slowed Mother Nature's ability to replenish herself. Finding ways to help her speed up the process is the goal of an innovative research partnership, now in its final year, between Hudbay and the University of Saskatchewan. Hudbay hopes the research will determine the most effective ways to remediate land in and around Flin Flon impacted by its mining and smelting operations. 'We're looking forward to the results, hoping that there is something in there that we're going to be able to use as a tool to further vegetate, or green, the area around us,' said Stephen West, superintendent of environmental control for the company. The five-year research project, which began in 2008, has U of S science students examine the reasons behind the unusually sluggish revegetation process in Flin Flon. Decades of air emissions from the now-defunct Hudbay copper smelter represent one of the more obvious influences. See 'Metals..' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 Much of the soil throughout Flin Flon contains smelter-borne heavy metals, and while this is not considered a major health risk for humans, it has induced plant toxicity. As part of the research, Jordan Hamilton, a science master's student, used the U of S's famed Canadian Light Source synchrotron to analyze metals in the soil. As reported by The StarPhoenix, Hamilton focused on zinc, the main metal of concern for plant life. He concluded that the success of efforts to spur revegetation is linked to the type of zinc in the soil. Hudbay, as part of its environmental requirements, has for years been revegetating property within and around its operations. The greening of the former South Main head frame site last summer, and the land north of the 777 head frame a year earlier, are two of the more visible examples. Hudbay is also a founding sponsor of the Flin Flon-Creighton Green Project, which uses limestone to cleanse metals from soil to promote fairly rapid revegetation. But some areas respond to the limestone better than others, a mystery that prompted Hudbay to seek answers. What other methods could be employed to stimulate vegetative growth? An agronomist working for Hudbay had ties to the U of S, whose College of Arts and Science took an interest in the matter. 'We started some discussions on what was possible and we came up with an agreement to start the research over a five-year program in various phases,' West said. The research project carries a total price tag of more than $1.6 million. That includes a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council as well as over $800,000 from Hudbay. State of the art The project utilizes U of S science master's students and their state-of-the-art facilities, including the synchrotron, which employs light to reveal the structural and chemical properties of materials. The students have examined not only the impact of smelter pollution on plant life, but also natural forces. While some people believe pollution is the sole reason for areas of vegetative sparseness around Flin Flon, there are other drivers at play. For one, a forest fire in the 1930s ravaged much of the forest in the area, and the intense heat burned the precious organics within the underlying soil. In Flin Flon's early days, many other trees were swiftly chopped down to supply fuel and lumber to the growing infrastructure of Hudbay, then known as HBM&S, and the burgeoning community itself. The loss of plant cover subjected the soil _ characteristically thin due to its location in the Canadian Shield _ to rain and spring melts, which in time washed away entire sections of soil. The goal now is to discern methods that, like limestone, will help Hudbay efficiently return its various properties to nature in as natural a state as possible. West hopes the research will benefit not only Hudbay, but other industrial companies in a similar situation as well. Yet despite all the time and money invested, he can't guarantee the work will produce the desired results. 'Whether something comes out of it that we can use or not, I don't know,' West said. 'But we never knew the answers to certain questions and that's what we're trying to find out. If it gives us a tool to help go forward on doing other work, then that's great.' West expects the final results from the research to be released in 2014, possibly in the early part of the year.
