ENVIRONMENTAL OVERVIEW
- NWP is committed to designing and operating a better Project. We want to learn from the mistakes of the past and build environmental controls into the Project from the beginning. It’s in everyone’s interests for us to avoid environmental impacts rather than have to clean them up later.
- Taking care of the environment is not just part of the regulatory process; NWP wants to live in the area, to be part of the communities and to be good neighbours.
- Part of that process will be through engagement by listening to Indigenous peoples, local communities and stakeholders about their environmental interests and concerns.
ENVIRONMENTAL FEEDBACK
NWP has gathered feedback through several processes:
- Official feedback through the regulatory process
- Feedback during meetings with Indigenous peoples, local communities, and local community groups
- Feedback gathered through online surveys
Key environmental feedback to date:
- Recreational use and access: The Project area is heavily used for hiking, hunting, and motorized activities like ATVing and snowmobiling.
- Wildlife habitat and use: The Project area has few prior impacts to the habitat and is adjacent to major habitat disruption from mining, forestry, and municipal development, Recreational users believe that the area is heavily used by wildlife and important for a variety of species.
- Water quality and quantity: The Project area has few prior impacts to water quality and quantity, Other mines in the area have current and legacy water quality challenges, Stakeholders want to know how NWP will do things differently to not have the same challenges.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS
NWP is committed to designing and operating a better Project. We act on that commitment by:
- Completing environmental baseline studies throughout the Project area and region
- Completing advanced wildlife models that go beyond the ‘typical’: Our modelled area is large enough to understand differences and pressures across the region reaching from the Rocky Mountain Trench to the Eastern slopes of the Rockies in Alberta; Our models account for actual presence of wildlife rather than extrapolating presence from habitat alone; Our models are being verified and adjusted by integrating different sources of data including camera data, hair snag data, aerial wildlife surveys.
- Participating in and supporting regional environmental cumulative effects management efforts
- Understanding Cumulative Effects in the Elk Valley
- Designing key environmental mitigation efforts right from the start: NWP is committed to a source control approach for waste rock storage; Tailings will be dried and used as part of the source control efforts; Clean coal will be stored under cover to substantially reduce dust from the storage and loading of clean coal; Footprint will be reduced and managed to maintain wildlife connectivity and to facilitate appropriate recreational use.
WATER QUALITY APPROACH
Crown Mountain proposes to implement "layer cake" spoil dumps to mitigate selenium and nitrates
- NWP believes the management of surface water through ongoing monitoring and protection is of the utmost importance along with adhering to approved water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life and drinking water.
- NWP has spent time considering how ongoing management of water quality can best be treated at the source which is why NWP is proposing a "layer cake" method to address selenium, nitrate and other elements requiring management at the Crown Mountain Project.
- The layer cake method is an engineered solution to create a controlled, suboxic environment to mitigate and minimise the leaching of elements from waste rock that will be mined at the Crown Mountain Project. This approach has involved conceptual studies undertaken by Enviromin and surface water modelling by SRK.
- By doing so, NWP seeks to create a stable ecosystem, using an engineered, in situ method for dealing with selenium and other elements at the source and providing a long term sustainable solution.
