Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Obtaining ""social license"" to operate is a key challenge for the mining industry in the Far North of Ontario because First Nations Communities face major uncertainties on how mining affects their traditional food sources. The discovery of the massive Chromium (Cr) deposits in the Ring of Fire area has created a unique challenge in this regard because Cr concentrations in fish tissue vary widely throughout the area, even before production mining has begun. However, we lack the analytical methods to be able to distinguish between the toxic (Cr VI) and more benign (Cr III) forms of Cr in fish tissue. The Ontario government response to this uncertainty has been to exercise precautionary principles and issue consumption guidelines to restrict the use of fish when total concentration of Cr exceeds published limits, but this approach unnecessarily curtails First Nations harvest. For example, various species of fish in the Attawapiskat River below the DeBeers Victor diamond mine exhibited elevated concentrations of Cr and consumption guidelines have been issued. Our project is therefore designed to develop and test new analytical methods for the speciation of Cr in fish tissue and develop models to associate these measured forms to environmental conditions in rivers and lakes throughout the North. This work will be an important inaugural project for a new analytical facility at Laurentian to support Ontario's mining industry and provide essential information to First Nations and other community members.