Caribou relevant environmental changes around the Ekati Diamond Mine - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Caribou relevant environmental changes around the Ekati Diamond Mine - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Sep 21, 2022 514 likes •821 views

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Caribou relevant environmental changes around the Ekati Diamond Mine measured in 2015 Wenjun Chen 1 , Sylvain G. Leblanc 1 , H. Peter White 1 , Brian Milakovic 2 , Harry OKeefe 3 , Bruno Croft 4 , Anne

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Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS

Caribou relevant environmental changes around the Ekati Diamond Mine measured in 2015

Wenjun Chen1, Sylvain G. Leblanc1,

  • H. Peter White1, Brian Milakovic2,

Harry O’Keefe3, Bruno Croft4, Anne Gunn5, and John Boulanger6

1 CCRS-NRCan 2 ERM-Rescan Environmental Services Ltd.

3 Dominion Diamond Corporation

4 ENR, GNWT 5 CARMA 6 Integrated Ecological Research Ltd.

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How might mining

  • perations have

impacted the Bathurst caribou?

Background

100 200 300 400 500 600 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Bathurst caribou population (,000) Year

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Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS

Knowledge gap

TK study (Mackenzie et al. 2013)

  • Caribou migration routes deflected away from the mines

probably due to seeing mining activities or hearing the noises

  • Skinny caribou or abnormal smells and materials in caribou

meat, liver, or the hide linings probably related to changes in caribou forage and quality of water and air A zone of influence (ZOI) study by Boulanger et al. (2012)

  • Size around the Ekati-Diavik using caribou presence dataset
  • A potential mechanism using the spatial distribution of the total

suspended particles, simulated with an atmospheric transport and dispersion model (Rescan, 2006) Key knowledge gap

  • Lack of direct measurements about the caribou relevant

environmental changes caused by mining operations

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Objectives

To quantitatively measure environmental changes around the Ekati Diamond Mine, by means of in-situ surveys and satellite remote sensing. Specifically to address the following questions:

  • Exactly from how far away can caribou clearly see mining
  • perations (e.g., the vehicles driving on a mining road, or the

buildings and the elevated waste piles in a camp)?

  • From how far away might caribou hear noises caused by

mining operations?

  • What are the spatial extents of air pollutions (e.g., dusts,

PM2.5) around mining operations?

  • How the air pollutions might have influenced caribou forage

quality?

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  • > 100 sites around

Ekati Diamond Mine

  • Filed surveys during

August 13-23, 2015

  • Variables measured:

visibility, noise, soil pH, vegetation % cover and mean height, dust on foliage, spectral reflectance

Study area and field measurements

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  • Visibility of mining operations (e.g., trucks in a

mining haul road, buildings and waste pile in a mining camp)

  • Extent of cumulative dust influence quantifying

using soil PH measurements

  • Impacts of air pollutions on caribou forage around

mining operations

Preliminary results

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Visibilities of mining operations - method

Probability of a clear view of a mining

  • peration in a

distance range (e.g., 100 to 200 m) quantified using site visual observations

  • r digital photos. For

example, 8 clear view sites out of 10 within the range would give a probability of 80%.

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0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 20 40 60 80 100 Distance (km) Probability of seeing a vehicle on a mining road (%)

y = -11.71x + 1176.6 R2 = 0.7831, n = 9, p = 0.0015 (visibility = 1,177 ± 250 m, on the basis of survey at 116 sites, with bin size = 100 m)

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Distance (km) Probability of seeing mine camp/waste pile (%)

y = -58.082x + 6472.2 R2 = 0.6926, n = 14, p = 0.0002 (visibility = 6,472 ± 1,592 m, on the basis of survey at 177 sites, with bin size = 500 m)

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Summary & next steps: visibility & noise

  • The visibility of a vehicle on a mining road by a caribou was

1177 ± 250 m, derived from 117 site observations. The visibility

  • f buildings and waste piles was 6472 ± 1592 m, on the basis of

survey at 177 sites

  • More site observations, better DEM data, and UV photos for

improving the accuracy for quantifying caribou’s visibility of vehicles in a road or a mining camp

  • Caribou’s visibilities of other mining operations (e.g. aircrafts)

not surveyed.

  • Not enough noise measurements to

make a credible quantification of the zone of noise influence; a next year’s focus

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Extent of cumulative dust influence

  • method

Year-round dust deposition measurements at 30, 100,1000 m

  • Advantage: direct

measurement, accurate, detail

  • f temporal variation

Disadvantage: sample size n ≤ 3, statistically less meaningful for quantifying the extent; time consuming, not suitable for short-term survey Alternative method: the study area has no main stream or river, and thus soil is the main receiver of dust accumulation. If dust depositions would significantly alter the properties of soil (e.g., pH), then soil pH measurements might be used to quantify the extent.

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3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Soil pH Sable Haul Road Fox Haul Road Misery Haul Road Roadside 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Far field sites AQ35 AQ48 AQ107 AQ109 AQ113 AQ114

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Soil solutions from sites of different distances from a mining haul road: 5, 30, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000 m

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y = -0.461ln(x) + 7.5232 R² = 0.8397, p = 9.7x10-43, n = 105

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Soil PH Distance from the Misery Haul Road (m)

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y = -0.562ln(x) + 8.047 R² = 0.8694, p = 1.9x10-38, n = 85 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0.1 1 10 100 1000 Soil PH Distance from the Sable Haul Road (m)

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y = -0.49ln(x) + 7.4658 R² = 0.73, p = 1.1x10-52, n = 180 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0.1 1 10 100 1000 Soil PH Distance from the Fox Haul Road (m)

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3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Soil pH Mass ratio of dust to organic material

Adding organic material Adding dust

3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Soil pH Mass ratio of dust to organic material

Adding organic material Adding dust

Dust vs. organic material experiment

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Summary & next steps: air pollutions

  • Near field and far field soil pH gradients can be used to

quantify the extent of cumulative dust influence: 1760 ± 469 m from the Misery Road, 1220 ± 290 m from the Sable Road, 1080 ± 278 m from the Fox Road

  • The difference in the extent may related to road history: Misery

Pit in full operation since 2003 except 2007-2013; Fox Pit in full

  • peration in 2003 but stopped in early 2014; Pigeon Pit (Sable

road) in full operation since the middle of 2014

  • Dusts and PM2.5 differ in terms of sources of origin, chemical

composition, pH, spatial distribution, and ecological impacts. Combined as TSP or measured separately?

  • PM2.5 remote sensing & measurements, a next year’s focus
  • More pH measurements in the distance range of 0.5-2.5 km
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Impacts of air pollutions on caribou forage - method

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y = 2.6447Ln(x) - 1.8315 R2 = 0.1964 10 20 30 40 50 60 1 10 100 1000 10000

Distance from a nearest mining haul road (m) Lichen cover on non-boulder land in a near field site (%)

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y = -2.922454ln(x) + 94.828466 R² = 0.160593 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1 10 100 1000 10000 Vascular plant cover on non-boulder land at a near field site (%) Distance from a nearest mining haul road (m)

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y = -0.338ln(x) + 41.377 R² = 0.0037 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 10 100 1000 10000

Leaf biomass (g m-2) Distance from a mining road (m)

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y = -0.9364Ln(x) + 6.835 R2 = 0.299, p-value = 0.0018, n = 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Distance from a mining road Dust on foliage (NTU/g leaves/100 ml) Dwarf birch measured before rains

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Greenness changes during 1985-2011 detected using Landsat time series

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Summary & next steps: impacts on caribou forage

The impacts of air pollutions on caribou forage are complex: – Near the mining roads, increased vascular plant % cover but not in leaf biomass, probably due to the increase in the amount of dusts on foliage limiting plant growth – Reduced lichen cover near the roads; causes need further investigation More remote sensing (high resolution, hyperspectral, time series) and field surveys needed to reduce uncertainties

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Acknowledgement

  • NWT CIMP
  • Dominion Diamond

Corporation (Harry O'Keefe, Laura Corey, Tom Jeffery, Matt Hoover, Cody Drygeese, Jeff Mantla, Eli Nasogaluak)

  • ENR-GNWT (Jan

Adamczewski, Andrea Patenaude, Dean Cluff)

  • NRCan (Anumeet Garcha,

Robert Frraser)