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Balancing Act
Feb 2, 2005 12:35 PM
By Kate Rice
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Diamonds sparkle in myriad ways in Canada’s frontier outpost town of Yellowknife, where the glint of diamond earrings, rings and bracelets brighten the long sub-Arctic nights.
“There’s a lot of bling-bling here now,” says Denise Burlingame, a 20-year-plus resident of Yellowknife who is now senior external affairs specialist with BHP Billiton. She is among the hundreds of mine employees who commute between Yellowknife and one of two diamond mines now operating in the Northwest Territories (NWT): Billiton’s Ekati Diamond Mine and the Diavik Diamond Mine, a joint venture with Aber Diamond Mines Ltd. and Rio Tinto plc. One employee benefit is healthy subsidies on diamond purchases.
The two mines lie about 180 miles northeast of Yellowknife and 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Winter days here have just two to three hours of sunlight, which then fades to a bare glimmer on the surrounding horizon for the rest of the day.
The mines themselves look like lunar space stations; their complexes hug the tundra beneath a vast sky. At Diavik, heated tunnels link buildings to protect workers from winter temperatures that can drop as low as 50 degrees Celsius below zero with an average temperature of 35 degrees below zero. Wind chill pushes the feel of such temperature even lower; exposed skin freezes in seconds in these conditions. Outdoor workers — maintenance crews, surveyors, water monitors and those unloading supply planes — wear so many layers with their faces protected from the cold that they look almost like astronauts in space suits.
The Geography
Workers and most supplies are flown in year-round to gravel airstrips near the mines. For about ten weeks a year, an ice highway means mines can truck in diesel fuel, ammonium nitrate for explosives and other bulky or dangerous materials. The rest of the year the mines are islands in the tundra, accessible only by air. Environmental impact concerns add many layers of complexity and costs to the operations. Diavik’s bodies of ore lie under a 60-kilometer lake; open-pit mining and drainage were out of the question. Diavik developed a prize-winning dike technology that increased the cost of the mine by $400 million to a total of $1.3 billion.
The mines are on centuries-old caribou migration routes. During twice-yearly migrations, caribou have the right of way — 240-ton hauling trucks must stop for them.
There is an exquisite tension here. Besides the classic man against nature — a high drama for centuries in this extreme climate — there is the delicate partnership between local populations — many of them aboriginal — and international mining companies. The vast mineral resources of this remote corner of Canada’s vast NWT have long attracted big business, but past ventures for the most part bypassed the locals.
Unemployment rates were at 30 percent to 40 percent and higher depending on the community, according to Doug Pagett, chief of special projects in the mineral resources directorate of Canada’s Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Traditional sources of income — like the fur trade — were fading. Literacy rates and aspirations were low and government assistance was high.
Diamond Dreams
Enter the diamond industry. Canada is now the world’s third-largest producer of diamonds. Diamond exploration is going on in almost every province in the nation. Besides Ekati and Diavik, other projects are in the works. De Beers has received regulatory approvals for its Snap Lake Diamond Project, which is scheduled to start production in 2007. Another mine — the Victor Project — is currently in development in Northern Ontario.
These mine operators are operating under a new set of rules, making aboriginal groups and associations such as the Dogrib Treaty 11 Council, the North Slave Metis Alliance (NSMA), the Inuit of Kugluktuk, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the Lutsel K’e Dene Band and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association (KIA) their partners. The mines have signed socioeconomic agreements in which they guarantee to employ a certain number of aboriginals and northern residents before importing new labor. These agreements extend to third-party suppliers. So far, it is working. Between 1996 and 2002, the Ekati and Diavik mines spent $3.4 billion on goods and services; 57 percent of that went to northern businesses and 28 percent to northern aboriginal businesses. Over the years, aboriginal businesses have doubled their share of this business. Ekati is working to achieve its goal of having 62 percent of its employees be from the NWT and 31 percent be northern aboriginal.
“It’s our goal to replace every southern employee with a northerner, as long as people have the skills to do the job,” says Burlingame. Diavik has fallen a bit shy of its original percentage goals — 66 percent northern and 40 percent northern aboriginal — but exceeded numeric goals because it employs 725 workers, which is far more than the 450 originally planned.
“Sheer numbers-wise, we’re way ahead,” says Tom Hoefer, manager of external and internal affairs with Diavik, which spends double its original goal on northern and aboriginal suppliers.
Social responsibility and economic necessity — the mines now have to compete for labor, with two mines open, one about to open and possibly more in the pipeline — have moved the mines to offer apprenticeship programs and workplace literacy and education programs to make sure workers have the basic skills needed to do their jobs safely and correctly. There is a need for more aboriginals in higher-level positions — such as geologists and engineers — and in skilled trades such as welders, carpenters and millwrights.
The mines offer scholarships for local populations. Expectations had been so low that when Ekati first offered scholarships in the 1990s, it had to search hard to find anyone to take them. Now there are more than 150 local students in post-secondary educational programs. Literacy rates are up — not just among workers but also among the population in general — now that the immediate benefit of being able to read is apparent.
Life Goes On
Shifts are designed to accommodate local and traditional lifestyles. In general, employees work two weeks on and then have two weeks off, flying in and out of the mines — meaning they can hunt, fish and pitch in at home when they are off.
“It’s a good rotation,” says Charlie Evalik, president of the KIA. However, there are costs. The regular absence of one member of the family for two weeks is tough in the close-knit communities of the north. Evalik misses his son when his son is up at the mine. A wage economy has meant that much more cash is available for discretionary spending and some of that is going toward alcohol and drugs in Yellowknife, although there is no alcohol on mine sites. Evalik says the community is taking steps to address these problems.
Monitoring the impact of mining on a fragile ecosystem is a major operation for both the mines and locals. Water is integral to the mining process and of critical concern to locals because both the Ekati and Diavik mines could pollute a watershed that is essential for both drinking water and fishing. Mines employ staff to monitor the water and fish through laboratory testing; aboriginals do their own palatability tests. Diavik even tested fish to see if mine blasting has a negative impact on them — it did not.
Tribal elders watch caribou migrations and make suggestions that Evalik says have been working pretty well.
It is a major balancing act, but all parties think that it is working. Both the Ekati and Diavik mines have won awards for their education, flexible scheduling and work with aboriginals. Northerners and aboriginals are undeniably watchful, but praise the benefits of a wage economy and education. One local student is about to receive a Ph.D. in Geology — an event Evalik announces with pride.
It is not a perfect system, says one tribal leader. But, concludes Evalik, “So far, so good and everything like that.”
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Tags:
BHP Billiton, De Beers, Diavik, Economy, Government, Mining Companies, Production, Rio Tinto
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