Areva touts proposed Kiggavik uranium mine on eve of Nunavut Mining Symposium

The Kiggavik uranium project, about 80 km from Baker Lake, would cost $2.1 billion to build and create hundreds of jobs over its 14-year lifespan. The Nunavut Impact Review Board rejected Areva Canada’s draft environmental statement in January and said an environmental review cannot begin until the company fixes its work. Areva said April 16 that it will deliver a new draft EIS by the end of April.

Areva Resources Canada Inc., which delivered a 10,000-page draft environmental impact statement to the Nunavut Impact Review Board this past December — and then saw it rejected a month later — is now reviewing regulators’ comments on the company’s open-pit uranium mine proposal, the company said April 15.

The NIRB had reviewed the draft EIS to determine if it conformed to guidelines issued to AREVA on May 3, 2011.

In January the review board’s staff found Areva’s work did not conform to those guidelines, which were worked out at an earlier public process, due to “deficiencies” in the statement.

Last month, Areva told the NIRB it planned to address those problems within a new draft EIS.

And on April 15, a day before the Nunavut Mining Symposium started in Iqaluit Areva said “we are now reviewing the NIRB’s comments and answering its questions, and plan to submit our responses in a new draft by the end of April.”

Areva Resources Canada, a subsidiary of the Areva group of companies in France, wants to build, operate and decommission a uranium mine, called the Kiggavik project, about 80 kilometres west of Baker Lake.

The company wants to extract uranium ore from open pits and an underground site, which would be processed at a mill, and then packaged and shipped out by air.

Sealifts and a winter access road would supply the mine site, says the executive summary of the draft EIS.

The mine, which would cost $2.1 billion to build over a four-year period and $240 million per year to operate, would generate up to 750 jobs during its construction and 600 jobs during its 14-year lifespan, as well as other indirect jobs.

Decomissioning would take another 10 years.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Government of Nunavut and the federal government would receive about $1 billion in taxes and royalties, Areva claims.

Areva said it won’t move ahead on an “earlier contemplated access road” to Baker Lake.

As for impacts on the environment, Areva said that “there will be no significant adverse project, cumulative or transboundary effects… worker and public health are also not compromised.”

The socio-economic effects are “positive overall” and will last beyond the project life, Areva claims.

Areva says its draft EIS reflects five years of technical studies.

Community feedback and traditional knowledge also influenced the project design and management, Areva said.

In favour of its project, Areva said uranium from Kiggavik would “help to meet the future needs for nuclear power, which would help reduce, on a global scale, greenhouse gas emissions.”

The summary acknowledges that Baker Lake residents raised many concerns about the project’s impact on caribou.

Areva states its project doesn’t fall within caribou calving grounds, which lie 70 kilometres away for the Beverly caribou herd and 200 km for the Qamanirjuaq herd.

Areva says “field observations and satellite collar locations show that the migratory herds’ use of the area is typically transient” in the spring and summer. Three tundra winter herds may use the area during winter, but move further north for calving.

Areva won’t build any road within 10 km of a caribou crossing and “will give caribou the right of way where possible and safe.”

Some animals may be killed from vehicle collisions or “problem animal kills,”

As for radiation, the summary draft EIS says that “regardless of where people live or work, they are exposed to radiation from natural sources.”

Air concentrations of contaminants “of potential concern, that is, dust, metals, gaseous compounds and radionucleides will increase.”

But the summary said that “all predicted residual effects resulting from the project are not expected to extend beyond the local area, will only occur and few times a year and are reversible.”

Noise and vibration will increase, ponds will be dewatered, groundwater levels will be affected, vegetation will be lost, treated effluent will be released, and fish may be effected by vibration and metal concentrations in some shallow areas of Judge Sissons Lake.

“Effects to wildlife and habitat are assessed as not significant,” Areva said.

But it also said emissions from the air and water related to the project may “enter the environment and subsequently expose members of the public.”

Some workers at the mine might be exposed to radiation from radon and inhalation of dust from the site, the company acknowledges.

But the dose to the public would be one-tenth of the dose limits set by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Areva asserts

“All exposures (to radioactivity, hazardous substances and other contaminants) remained well below acceptable limits.”

Areva says it plans to monitor radiation in order to promptly detect “potentially abnormal radiological conditions, to estimate worker doses, and to document radiological conditions”.

You can consult the 160-page document here or visit mining representatives on April 18, when Nunavut Mining Symposium will hold its trade fair, which is open to the public.