Timmins Local Citizens Committee

Minutes of March 11, 2009

March 11, 2009
LCC hours:  54 hours
Year to Date: 321
Total: 5566.4

Date:  March 11, 2009

Location: Ontario Government Complex, Fire Boardroom                                                                 

Present: Dave Stringer, Bill Russell, Jenny Millson, Melanie Johnson, Robert Calhoun, Kees Stryland, Lino Morandin, Mark Joron, Ron Johnson, Rusty Fink

Regrets: Kees Pols, James McCarthy, Chris McKay, Bob Bielek, Scott Tam, Gail Krawchuk

Absent: Audrey Cumming, George Sackenay, Dino Pellerin, Bill Hutchinson, Robert Vien

MNR: Glen McFarlane, Jim Duncan, Nikki Wood, Mac Kilgour

Guests: Craig Howard, IFA Consultant; Roger Taillefer, GoldCorp
Call to Order:
Bill Russell called the meeting to order at 6:50 p.m.

Summary of Action Items for This Meeting:
Action Item03-09-01: The Bromley Lake Protection discussion be deferred to the next meeting
Action Item 03-09-02: That information is provided to a future meeting to discuss wood licensing and wood flow in the Timmins area.

Review and Approval of February 11, 2009 Minutes:

• Motion to accept- Dave Stringer
• Seconded by- Mark Joron
• Carried

Review and Approval of tonight’s agenda:

• Motion to accept- Dave Stringer
• Seconded by- Jenny Millson
• Carried

Letters/Correspondence

• The proposed Long Term Management Strategy for the Gordon Cosen Forest is now available for public review This FMP is for the 2010-2020 period.
• Proposed schedule of FMP Information Centre for July and Notice of Draft Plan Review in October 2009.
• Timmins LCC savings account balance is $1823.10-Credit Union

District Manager Update-Jim Duncan

• Phase Two Provincial Moose Tag Allocation for Moose Public Review forum took place on March 5, 2009 at the McIntyre Arena; approximately 100 people showed up to the event
• Moose tag allocation options were show cased and provided for public comments and advice; The Provincial committee will respond take comments and advice and work on a final tag allocation system this summer/fall.
• As part of the bump up process for the Nighthawk Forest FMP 2008-2018, MOE had requested a facilitated discussion take place between the forest Industry, municipality of Matheson and the Grindstone Road residents to provide a list of conditions in which the wood haul will adhere to during forest operations; In general terms the wood haul is restricted to week days only during the winter months
• The wood haul has been completed on the Grassy Road; the snowmobiles have resumed use of the road.
• Harvesting operations on the local forests are just about complete for the winter season; had to deal with marketability issues to maintain forest operations this year. There is a good opportunity for the LCC to take a field trip to better understand the forest industry issues.
• Timmins District has been provided approval to fill the vacant Land Use Planner position; interviews for the job are scheduled soon.
• Timmins is still waiting for approval to fill the vacant Area Biologist position.

Three Nations Lake Project- Roger Taillefer
Roger provided the Timmins LCC with a review of the Three Nation Lake project in context with the Pamour open pit expansion, the haul road access to the Dome Mill and the highway re-location.

• In order to mine the Pamour open pit, GoldCorp undertook three major projects to enable the expansion;
• Re-locate the highway
• Re-locate a portion of Three Nation Lake
• Construct a haul road to connect the pit to the mill
• Three Nation Lake re-location project was segmented into 4 sub projects listed:
• Fish removal
• Coffer dam construction
• Lake and creek re-location
• Plug removal
• The fish removal project started in fall 2005; a turbidity curtain was stretched across the potion of the lake where the future coffer dam was to be constructed. Fish were netted out of the removal portion of the lake and re-introduced back into the un-disturbed portion of the lake. About 157 fish were removed and this project was complete by early January 2006.
• The coffer dam began construction in the winter of 2006; the dam is constructed with rock geo-synthetic textile and clay. The dam site was excavated to bedrock and the dam was built. The project was completed in summer 2007.
• The new lake basin project began in the winter of 2005; The basin is located in the SE vicinity of the old lake ; new basin was constructed using excavators and was shaped and contoured according to specification; average new depth ranges 3-4 meters; creation of spawning areas and habitat structure with rock. A new creek was re-located to allow for lake flow; a weir system is also in place to maintain lake levels.
• To complete the lake re-location project, an earth plug separating the old and new basin had to be removed. The idea of the project was to make enough snow with the use of snow making machines and pile it on the plug removal site. The weight of the snow will push ice to bottom of the lake causing the area to freeze and be excavated out without causing siltation. The site to excavate measured 110 meters long and was dug out to 3 meters in depth. It took 34 days to make a 30 meter pile of snow (approximately 150, 000m3). The plug was worked on in 10 meter by 5 meter sections and dug to grade. Waste material was trucked to the mine site. Excavated portion was filled with loose snow to assist with slow settling of silt during spring freshet.

Following Roger’s presentation there was a general discussion and some questions.

• Q- Did you match the same size lake replacement with the area of the lake that was lost?
• A- This was negotiated with the provincial and federal regulators. The new lake basin is constructed with the idea of “no net loss” to fish habitat. The basin was engineered to simulate similar lake basin volume, surface area and habitat parameters.
• Q- If you had the chance of doing this project again, what would you change?
• A- I would start the permitting process earlier.

Move to accept- Melanie Johnson
                                                Seconded by- Robert Calhoun
Carried

Independent Forest Audit Results for the
2003-08 Period Nighthawk Forest- Craig Howard
Craig provided the Timmins LCC members with a synopsis of the IFA for the Nighthawk Forest (see attached presentation):

• Audit took place at the end of September 2008 and took 5 days to complete
• The Audit sample included harvest depletion, artificial and natural regeneration, aerial tending, free to grow and road access and maintenance.
• Area of Concern sampling included nest sites, canoe routes, water quality, fish habitat, cultural heritage and moose aquatics.
• 55 sites were visited in the field.
• Audit findings showed a  good commitment to sustainable forest policies; good history of forest management practices and CSA certified
• Public consultation included a mail out of 624 surveys; 40 responded; 2 open houses; out of the responses, majority ranked performance for forest industry and MNR as adequate, 4 ranked performance as poor
• Audit team found the Timmins LCC as very experienced, and functioned meet FMPM requirements
• LCC was complimentary about the educational and training opportunities provided to them by Abitibi and MNR.
• LCC recognizes that the FMP process is very complex
• Audit team provided a recommendation that the Terms of Reference for the LCC be reviewed and updated.
• Audit team consulted with First Nations and found that FN is satisfied with Abitibi’s willingness to work with them.
• First Nations were not impressed with the High Potential Cultural Heritage site mapping tool (HATT model)
• Audit team also found that all Issue Resolution processes were being followed for the Watabaeg Road, Grindstone Road and Fire Cycle issues in the 2008 plan preparation.
• In terms of the preparation of the 2008 FMP, the audit team was impressed with the use of task teams and FMP met requirements as outlined in the manual.
• MNR needs to better utilise the progress check point process; found that check points were acknowledged but not approved; a recommendation will be outlined in the audit results for MNR to make changes to improve.
• The audit team checked Areas of Concern planning and field checked; all AOCs seemed appropriate; found 5 locations of old water crossings posing environmental threats and safety concerns; there will be a recommendation for MNR to review old crossings and take appropriate action.
• The audit team reviewed plan implementation on such activities as harvest utilization where very few issues were noted, minimal site disturbance was found, no industrial garbage was found; harvest volumes vs. projection was improved; slash piles in winter blocks were found; found increase of fir on claag sites; found CSIP treatments effective; natural regeneration aided by leaving slash on sites; lowland natural regeneration treatments were effective; artificial planted areas had good coverage;
• poplar regeneration on decline areas are not good enough; these sites need to be rehabilitated through access to Forest Futures funding and MNR must address this issue.
• Tending treatments looked effective
• Some water crossing maintenance issues were found.
• The audit team found that claag prescription was commonly applied and was found incorrect with SGR’s and FOPs. A recommendation will be provided that the Company ensure that all harvest practices reflect the prescription as outlined in the SGRs
• A recommendation will also be provided for the Company to find ways to reduce road side slash in winter blocks
• A recommendation that MNR/Abitibi develop an action plan to rehabilitate poplar decline areas that have succumbed to forest tent caterpillar infestation.
• The audit team reviewed system support and field operations monitoring
• The audit team found that inter district MNR compliance monitoring requires better coordination; found that compliance checks were insufficient
• The audit team reviewed the achievement of management objectives and forest sustainability by reviewing the achievement of objectives, reviewed the RPFO and reviewed trend analysis
• In summary the audit team were impressed with overall achievements and will recommend the extension of the SFL licence.

Motion to accept: Kees Stryland
Seconded by- Lino Morandin
Carried

Nighthawk Forest Amendment-Road Right of Way Widths- Mac Kilgour
Abitibi-Bowater proposed an administrative amendment to increase their road right of way widths from 30 to 33 meters. This provides for more consistency across the forest and also allows for ease of forest operations implementation of harvest equipment. MNR is ok to approve the changes
                                    Motion to accept- Robert Calhoun
                                    Seconded by- Dave Stringer

Cochrane Area Forest LTMD Summary- Nikki Wood
Nikki reminded everyone that the CAF LTMD is available for public review and to please take time to read the summary and provide comments.

CAF Forest Management Planning Update- Kees Stryland
Kees re-iterated Nikki’s comments about reviewing the LTMD as this plan will affect the Nighthawk forest in the Timmins area. He also provided copy of the LTMD advertisement that went to the newspaper and also provided copies of the Cochrane Area Forest maps and discussed some of the information shown on the maps

Bromley Lake Discussion- Mac Kilgour
Mac provided the Timmins LCC members with a re-cap of the discussion from the February meeting about the need to restrict public access in the Bromley lake area; he discussed the need to restrict the public use of newly constructed roads within the harvest areas allocated and the use of signs to identify the locations.
A general discussion pursued; concerns were raised such as to the ability to tie up an area of the forest for the single use of remote tourism; concerns were also raised about the use of public funds to construct these roads; MNR needs to protect the tourism value as outlined in the Crown Land Use Atlas.
The Chair-man deferred the discussion to next meeting.
Action Item03-09-01: The Bromley Lake Protection discussion be deferred to the next meeting

Round Table Issues/Discussion- All

• Interesting meeting
• Excellent presentation
• I am concerned with licensing of poplar and other resources that are not being processed in Timmins; I would like to here more about this issue.

Action Item 03-09-02: That information is provided to a future meeting to discuss wood licensing and wood flow in the Timmins area.

The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm
           

Next Meeting

Next meeting scheduled for April 8, 2009 at the Fire Boardroom of the Ontario Government Complex. Please contact Gail Krawchuk at gga@ntl.sympatico.ca if you cannot attend.

Minutes taken by:                                                    Minutes approved by:

……………………                                                    …………………………
Gail Krawchuk                                                          Bill Russell
LCC Secretary                                                          Chair