What is the status of the metal mining Environmental Effects Monitoring Program?
The Metal Mining Effluent Regulations, which were proclaimed in June, 2002 under the Fisheries Act requires metal mines to conduct an Environmental Effects Monitoring program (EEM). The metal mining EEM program allows mines to submit reports of historical monitoring data that could be used to guide future EEM studies, or submit a study design for the first EEM study. All of these reports or study designs were submitted by December 2003. About half of the approximately ninety mines subject to the MMER submitted reports on historical information, while the other half submitted their first study designs. As a result, field work was conducted at approximately half the mines in Canada in the summer and fall of 2004.
