January 28, 2016 - Sudbury's second largest mining company, Glencore's Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, has received approval to exceed emission standards while it upgrades its Falconbridge smelter.  Glencore officials are pleased with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change's recent decision to grant approval of its site-specific standard application for nickel at the smelter, said company spokeswoman Yonaniko Grenon.  "This approval allows us the required time to research, design and implement the technologies and processes required to further reduce nickel emissions from our Sudbury smelter facility while maintaining compliance with Ontario's Air Quality Regulation," she said.  Before it submitted its application, Glencore held consultation sessions with key stakeholders, among them the Falconbridge Citizens' Committee. It also held an open house and sent a letter to Falconbridge residents providing an overview of the standards process, said Grenon.  The June 2014 open house was staffed by a number of technical experts, including representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.  Glencore just received approval for the smelter for dioxide, cadmium and nickel site-specific standards from the ministry.  Improvements have been made as part of these site-specific standard approvals, said Grenon. The initial work focused on reducing sulphur dioxide emissions.  Sudbury INO applied for the site-specific for the smelter's nickel emissions to air in 2014 and it was approved by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change in December 2015, she said.  The ministry approved Glencore's request for a site-specific standard for nickel and nickel compounds at the smelter after an in-depth technical review, said ministry spokesman Lindsay Davidson.  Site-specific standards require companies to invest in the best available technology and practices to reduce emissions over time. "This ensures industries are continually improving their performance and decreasing emissions to better protect the environment," he said.  Glencore has made significant investments in state-of-the art technology, said Davidson, and will continue investing in its facility to reduce air emissions.  The ministry closely monitors a company's progress as it works to reduce air emissions as much as possible with technology-based solutions and best practices.  Public participation plays an important role in the ministry's review of proposals for site-specific standards, said Lindsay. A draft site-specific standard approval for Glencore was posted on the Environmental Registry for a 45-day public review and no comments were received.  The city's largest miner, Vale Ltd., received approval from the ministry for a site-specific standard for nickel in December 2011 and for sulphur dioxide in December 2012. The nickel site-specific standard expires Dec. 28, 2021, and the approval for sulphur dioxide Dec. 31, 2017. Davidson said Vale is operating in compliance with the site-specific standards.  Due to the current economic climate, with nickel prices at an all-time low, Vale has advised the ministry some of Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction project will be delayed, said Davidson.  The Clean AER project will reduce sulphur emissions by 85 per cent, and reduce dust and metal emissions and greenhouse gases by 40 per cent.  Davidson said Vale has told the ministry it expects to be in compliance with the provincial standard for sulphur dioxide by the end of 2017.  At a meeting last week of the Sudbury branch of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, the director of the Clean AER project, Dave Marshall, told the audience Vale has completed 55 per cent of the work for the $1-billion project.  Marshall said $625 million has been invested and the project is on target for completion by January 2018.  www.thesudburystar.com/

November 24, 2010 - Greater Sudbury citizens are invited to attend a Nov. 25 meeting focusing on Xstrata Nickel’s application to have longer to meet the province’s new air emissions guidelines for sulphur dioxide.   The meeting will be held between 2 and 8 p.m. at the Falconbridge Community Centre.  Marc Butler, director of regulatory affairs with Xstrata’s Sudbury operations, said the company has asked to have until 2015 to meet the province’s current standard of 0.25 parts per million of sulphur dioxide.  The company is currently emitting 0.34 parts per million of sulphur dioxide.  He said he hopes the Ministry of the Environment will make a ruling on Xstrata’s request within the first half of 2011.  Xstrata Nickel is planning investments in its Sudbury operations to meet the new environmental guidelines. Butler said he doesn’t know how much these investments will cost, but they could easily get up to hundreds of millions of dollars.  Vale announced recently that it will spend $1.5 to $2 billion on an atmospheric emissions reduction project.  It takes time to implement technology because it needs to be tested first on the ground, Butler said.

January 22, 2010 - Xstrata Nickel cut production at its Falconbridge smelter Thursday afternoon because the weather was causing an inversion effect, where the plume is closer to the ground, said a spokesperson from the Ministry of the Environment.  Kate Jordan said the ministry received three complaints from the public about a sulphur haze over the Ramsey Lake area starting at about 3 p.m.  "Once we received complaints, we followed up first with Inco to ensure that it wasn't anything that was happening at the smelter in Copper Cliff," Jordan said.  Inco's plume, however, was travelling away from the city, she said.  "Then our environmental officer followed up with Xstrata and they were already aware of the situation and had cut back operations," Jordan said.   Jordan said the weather conditions were causing an "inversion" where the plume is lower than it would be normally.  "They do monitor for it. They know when they see that that condition is going to be present, they cut back operation," Jordan said.  Dominique Dionne, vice-president of corporate affairs at Xstrata in Toronto, said the smelter was brought down when the problem occurred.  "We have systems that tell us when there is an exceedance (in emissions) and we haven't had any of that so far," she said.  Jordan said the ministry was in contact with Xstrata Thursday afternoon.  "Based on all the information that was provided by the company in our discussions with them, we don't have any immediate concerns for impacts to the environment or to public health," Jordan said.