DONKIN, N.S. — The labour department is investigating another rockfall at Donkin Mine which was shut down by its owners on March 30.
“This rockfall happened on the weekend when none of the staff were underground so there were no injuries,” said Scott Nauss, senior director of inspections and compliance with the Department of Labour and Advanced Education
The rockfall occurred in a straight section of one of the entry tunnels in an old part of the mine constructed in the 1980s and was 8x12x16 feet in size.
“It’s smaller than some of the typical rockfalls that have happened in the past,” he said.
Nauss said the department was made aware of the rockfall Monday and inspected the mine immediately. A stop-work order was issued.
Since Kameron Coal closed down the mine, only a skeleton maintenance crew has been employed. It’s not known how many people are working, but it’s believed to be less than 10.
The labour department has issued Kameron Collieries a followup order to do an assessment and clean up the rockfall.
It’s too early in the investigation to determine what level of consultant experts the mine will use, Nauss added.
“Once they have their assessment completed and it’s satisfactory, they may be permitted to go back into this maintenance mode.”
At this time the company can only carry out the minimal amount of maintenance necessary and can work towards getting the assessment done but are not permitted to be in the area of the rockfall.
“They are allowed to clean up the area, inspect the geology and inspect the supports and ground control system to try to determine what happened,” Nauss said.
The skeleton crew maintains the mine's systems such as electrical, ventilation, pumps and belting.
“They are working on developing a code of practice so that they can go into idling mode,” Nauss said. “To make sure all those systems are able to run in the event they want to produce in the mine down the road.”
This is believed to be the 13th rockfall at Donkin Mine since 2017.
When Kameron Collieries announced the mine would no longer be producing coal and closing for good, it left an estimated 150 people out of work. The company said the decision to cease operations was due to the challenging geology. At the time of the closure announcement, the owners said the mine was not going to be sealed but they intended to have a skeleton crew in place to ventilate and keep the facility dewatered.
Nauss said rockfalls are a significant concern in this particular mine. However, he said the company has consulted experts and tried to manage the falls.
“It’s definitely a challenge the company is focusing a lot of efforts into,” he said. “We’re really going to hold them accountable to make sure the ground control system is even effective to allow them to do this maintenance activity which is a lot less risky than production activity.”
Kameron Collieries was contacted for comment but did not responded by deadline.
