Petition with respect to the Viviane Sand project.

 On Thursday,  March  11,  I read a  petition with respect to the need  for a  more  careful  enviromental   review of the proposed Vivian  Sand plant  and mine.   The petition is below  (from Hansard).

Vivian Sand Facility Project–Clean Environment Commission Review

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights):  Madam Speaker, I wish to present the following petition to the Legislative Assembly.

      The background to this petition is as follows:

      The Vivian sands project is a proposed silica sand mine and processing plant to be built in the RM of Springfield. The overall project includes mining claims of over 85,000 hectares, making it the largest claim ever given to a single company in Manitoba's history. It is larger than the city of Winnipeg, which is 46,410 hectares.    The amount of dry, solid sand mined and produced per year according to the EAP is 1.36 million tons, and much of this sand will be used in fracking.

      A major concern of the proposed mine and plant  is that, if developed, it could contaminate the  Sandilands aquifer, including both carbonate and sandstone aquifers, which covers much of south­eastern Manitoba. It has excellent water quality and is the water source for tens of thousands of Manitobans, including many municipal water systems, agriculture, industry, private wells and an abundance of wildlife and ecosystems.

      Further, people in the Indigenous communities that are potentially affected by this were not afforded the required Indigenous consultation from either fed­eral or provincial government officials.

      The sustainable yield of the combined sandstone and carbonate aquifers has still not yet been esta­blished by provincial authorities.

      The mine could cause leaching of acid and heavy metals and pollute the aquifer, as it will go down 200 feet into the Winnipeg formation of the sandstone aquifer. There is concern that the shale, which separates the carbonate and sandstone aquifers–sand and pyritic oolite itself contains sulphides–will, when exposed to injected air from the CanWhite Sands extraction process, turn to acid.

      An additional concern with the proposed mine and plant is the potential to pollute the Brokenhead River and the aquatic food chain leading to Lake Winnipeg.

      Residents in the area have also expressed fears of being overexposed to silica dust during production, as there has been a demonstrated lack of safety and environmental procedures by the CanWhite Sands Corporation during the exploratory drilling phase. Signage and fencing has been poor; identifying and required mine claim tags were missing; and there were no warnings for silica dust exposure and no coverings to prevent exposure of the silica stockpiles to the elements.

      Residents' concerns include the fact that bore­holes, which should have been promptly and properly sealed, were left open for a year. The drilling of hundreds of improperly sealed boreholes yearly create significant risks of surface contamination, mixing of aquifer waters and drainage of surface fecal matter into the aquifer.

      There is also a risk of transboundary issues that need to be addressed as the aquifers extend into Minnesota.

      This project should not proceed, as no licensing conditions and mitigation measures will alleviate the risk to all Manitobans and the environment since CanWhite Sands Corporation plans to use an un­precedented mining technique with no established safe outcome. The corporation has gone on record indicating that it does not know how to mine for the silica in the water supply and need to develop a new extraction methodology that's never been done before.

      Contamination of the aquifers and the environ­ment is irreversible and there are many surface sources of high purity silica that can be extracted without endangering two essential regional aquifers.

      We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:

      To urge the provincial government to undertake a combined review of the Vivian Sand Facility processing plant and the mining/extraction portion of the operation as a class 3 development with a review by Manitoba's Clean Environment Commission to include public hearings and participant funding.

      To urge the provincial government to halt all activity at the mine and plant until the Clean Environment Commission's review is completed and the project proposal has been thoroughly evaluated.

      Signed by Charlene Closer, Grant Fertiliy [phonetic], Jaskaren Grewal, and many, many others.