Several mining companies had decided over the weekend to halt their activities due to poor air quality from smoke from wildfires raging in the area. To ventilate tunnels in mines, outside air is forced underground, which can endanger the health and safety of workers if the air quality is poor.
“At Agnico Eagle we worked with reduced staff on Friday June 2nd,” emphasizes Laurie Théberge, General Manager of Communications. According to public health advice, shifts were canceled altogether in some locations during the night of June 3-4.
From the night shift of June 4th, activities have now resumed at all of the company’s sites, particularly at the La Ronde and Goldex mines. Ditto for Iamgold’s Westwood mine.
Of course, we continue to seek new recommendations from public health and CNESST to ensure a completely safe work environment for all of our employees.
said Laurie Théberge in a written statement.
No return is planned for Casa Berardi
Hecla’s Casa Berardi mine, north of La Sarre, is still closed three days after operations were suspended due to wildfires.
Since the forest fires also led to the closure of the access road to the mine, Hecla Quebec decided last Friday to temporarily suspend Casa Berardi’s activities.
As of last Thursday we have already started to monitor the air quality situation initially as we have two underground mines. We didn’t want to introduce problematic air to our workers, so this was closely monitored
said Émilie Bélanger, Director of Sustainable Development and Community Relations at Hecla Québec, about the program in the morning gold.
The mining company therefore decided on Friday to suspend the night shift and did not resume operations over the weekend.
The company could not say on Monday morning when business operations could be resumed. We are monitoring the situation closely with SOPFEU. There is also the Quebec Mining Exploration Association which is working hard to gather more information but at this time we do not have a date for when operations will resume.
mentioned Ms. Bélanger.
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