Three members of the Hollinger Open Pit Citizens Advisory Committee have resigned — including its chair and its secretary.
“The committee continues to operate and we had a meeting last week,” said Bryan Neeley, Goldcorp’s manager of sustainability and its representative on HOPCAC.
The committee's chair, Rick Dubeau, confirmed he and the two others — Caleigh Rogers, the group's secretary, and Tara Rogers — had resigned and Dubeau said he would in time discuss the frustrations they had over how HOPCAC was handling residents’ complaints about noise and dust from the haul road from the open pit mine, through southern Schumacher and Gold Centre to the Dome Mill in South Porcupine.
The trucks travelling between the open pit and the Dome Mill arrived every two minutes on the Goldcorp haul route built solely for the purposes of transporting the ore to the Dome Mill
The Hollinger Open Pit Citizens Advisory Committee was established as part of the agreement between the City of Timmins and Goldcorp to begin operations at the old Hollinger mine side by opening an open pit and undertaking measures to properly close the site which had not been mined actively since the late 1980s.
A major issue of contention was the pace of remediation of noise levels along the haul route from the Hollinger open pit through southern Schumacher into Gold Centre and the Dome Mill in South Porcupine.
Goldcorp for its part hired acoustical engineers to measure noise levels; determine the source of the noise and propose reduction measures.
Several noise recordings and measuring devices known were placed around the open pit and along the haul route.
Goldcorp has tried several measures tor reducing the impact from noise, such as improving truck mufflers, but those measures was not as productive as the company had hoped in reducing noise level.
Next Goldcorp examined the use of noise attenuation barriers. The first test of a noise barrier also did not reduce noise appreciably.
During discussions at the January meeting of HOPCAC Goldcorp indicated it would need additional studies to determine which are the best options for noise attenuation.
Another issue was the heavy dust fall that was impacting residents of Schumacher and Gold Centre.
Residents along the haul route were convinced the source was the open pit operation, and the haul trucks stirring up dust and particulate emissions from the road and off the ore bodies being transported to the Dome Mill.
At a January meeting, some residents wanted Goldcorp to reduce the dust fall levels; that were high over the winter, but likely to increase even higher as spring arrived.
Neeley, the Goldcorp representative, said more studies would have to be held to determine if the dust that was noticeable on vehicles, windows and on area houses, originated from Goldcorp or if there was a more localized source that was not of Goldcorp’s making.
Things came to a head at the January meeting when a division appeared to divide the citizens on the HOPCAC.
The residents along the haul wanted Goldcorp to start implementing solutions instead of ordering more studies.
A couple of residents from the Fairway Trailer Park, challenged the Haul Route residents position and asked them to be patient and wait for the results of the new set of studies.
In 2016, the HOPCAC citizens undertook a resident’s survey, to find out what problems they were experiencing with the open pit and the haul route. The survey results indicated unhappiness with noise, vibrations from the blasting and dust levels that were impacting them.
Dubeau and Rogers were trying to convince Goldcorp to hold a community meeting to share the information with other residents, but such meeting has been held or scheduled.
In the meantime, Timmins residents can now take a walk along the newly opened Hollinger Trail situated on the west side of the open pit starting at Knox Avenue, just off Railway St and continuing south to Moneta Avenue.
The trail has night lampposts, benches and mementos from Timmins’ mining heritage that include brightly orange coloured mining cars and engines used to haul ore to the surface.
The lights and the paving took place last fall, but remained covered by winter snow until recently when spring snow melt made the trail more accessible to a larger segment of residents.