Roughrider Project Community Visits November 2013 Brochet, MB: Barren Lands First Nations & Brochet Community Public Meeting Thursday Nov 7, 2013 In Attendance: Rio Tinto: Jay Fredericks, External Relations; Sharon Singh, Community Relations; Richard Snider, Environment. Recorder: Gill Gracie, Aurora Communications Ltd. Community: Approximately 25 people. Translation available, equipment not used. Chief Michael Sewap started the meeting at 2:52 pm. Opening Prayer Jay Fredericks thanked the audience for coming out, saying it’s a pleasure to be here on the traditional lands of the Barren Lands First Nation, and to have a chance to talk to you about the Roughrider Project and what we’re hoping to do there. He went through the presentation outline and asked people to save their opinions and suggestions and questions for the end please. Safety Share: Safety while working on ice. Presentation: Jay Fredericks, Richard Snider, Sharon Singh (PowerPoint Presentation) Jay Fredericks About Rio Tinto Rio Tinto has been mining for more than 100 years. We’re a fairly old mining company with a lot of experience in different parts of the world (map). We produce a variety of metals - aluminum, copper, iron ore, borax, diamonds, uranium and coal. We operate two uranium mines, in Namibia and the Ranger mine in northern Australia. We own the Diavik diamond mine in the NWT, which is a good example of the relationships Rio Tinto has developed with local communities. We have a number of agreements in place with the local communities in the vicinity of that mine. In Australia we are the largest employer of aboriginal people. Working with local communities is taken very seriously at every mine where we develop mineral resources. It’s very important to the company and our future. The Exploration Process To give you a sense of just how few properties make it from exploration to mining, if we start with all the properties we’re working at around the world and go through the different stages of exploration, somewhere around 0.03% of the projects we start with will ever develop into a mine. 1 If we start off with 10,000 projects where we’re looking for minerals, only three will ever develop into a mine. There are a lot of hurdles we have to get over before we decide if it’s worthwhile to develop. Roughrider is in the exploration process, and we have a long way to go. Exploration does not guarantee mining. Location The location is by Points North (located on a map relative to other projects) about 70 km in a straight line from Hatchet Lake. The Project There are three ore zones – the West Zone is 220m down, the East Zone 280m, and the Far East Zone 350m. At that depth, it’s hard to hit specific deep targets, so we’re proposing to go underground and get closer to the ore to get more detailed knowledge of the ore and some other characteristics. Richard Snider Advanced Exploration We came to the community in August and talked about Rio Tinto. We said we may do an advanced exploration project, and now we’re getting into more detail. This meeting is to give you information about what we are proposing to do, what the impacts will be, how we’re going to reduce those impacts, and get your comments and concerns on that project. We are looking at excavating a shaft straight down, then two horizontal drifts; then we drill into the ore zones. It’s easier to hit a target from closer. We’re not mining; this is exploration; it will help us determine if we should mine in the future. Right now we’re going through the environmental assessment process; we have to get approval from the province of Saskatchewan before we go forward. We also have to get our own internal Rio Tinto approvals. What will we get from this program? We would like to get more information on groundwater, and how much groundwater might go into the mine. That’s very important; some uranium mines in Saskatchewan have had issues with water inflows, and managing that water. Cigar Lake was delayed for years because of a water inflow that flooded the mine. Everybody was safe, the environment protected, but it delayed the project. We want to avoid that if we do decide to mine. We know we have three orebodies; we want to find out if there are any more, and make sure we have a good understanding of those orebodies if we decide to mine. We will also look at things like what is the ground like, what kind of ground support will you need, what is the groundwater quality. We’ve done a lot of studies on groundwater, but it’s always better if you can develop the drifts and see what actually flows into the mine. Community Engagement Brochet was included in the key communities. We identified early in the project who we should talk to about the Roughrider Project as a whole, who we should talk to as part of the exploration program. We identified a few communities, including Brochet, Lac Brochet, Kinoosao, Southend, Hatchet Lake, Wollaston Lake, Black Lake, Stony Rapids and Fond du Lac. We were looking at who’s in the area, whose traditional lands we are on, how could we impact the communities through environmental factors like water flow, air direction. Health, Safety, Environment and Community Policies We have a health and safety and environment and community policy statement that we use to determine what we should be doing to protect our people, to engage with the communities and make sure we understand and address the concerns, and what we should to for and how should be protect the environment. Environmental Baseline Studies One of the first things you do when planning a project is look at what’s there – what animals live there, what plants are there, what disturbance might we cause, and will that be acceptable or not. We had an Aboriginal-owned consulting form, CanNorth, do an environment baseline (showed maps of study area). They looked at the land and the water. 2 We had two options for where to discharge our treated effluent (water that has had contaminants removed). Two main options: o going north into the Smith Creek system, which goes to Hatchet Lake and then through the Fond du Lac system into Lake Athabasca and ultimately into the Arctic Ocean, or o discharge into Collins Creek which goes by the McClean Lake mine and into Wollaston Lake. Wollaston Lake flows into the Cochrane River by Lac Brochet and Brochet, and into Reindeer Lake and the Churchill River. We studied both options in terms of what impacts it would cause in these systems. We looked at water, what lives in the water (plants, bugs, fish sediment) to understand what the impact of the project might be. (showed maps) We look at the flow of the water, how much is moving; we look at lake levels and depths to understand what the volume is like; we look at water quality through sampling in all the lakes and streams, plankton, sediment – basically what lives in the water, the sediment and what’s in the sediment, and fish because they are the ultimate receptors of contaminants so we want to make sure we’re protecting the fish. Generally in water there’s low levels of metals; some metals were naturally elevated, as is often the case. We found 10 large-bodies fish species, and six small-bodies fish species. The most common large- bodied fish were pike, white sucker and lake whitefish. Smith Bay of Hatchet Lake had the most fish species, North McMahon Lake (the lake that we are bordering) had the highest number of fish captured. On the land we looked for rare or endangered plants; what type of trees or brush, what grows on the land and what type of habitat might that provide. Is it good moose or caribou habitat – you call that ecosite classification, saying what’s there - swamps, wetlands etc. We did amphibian surveys – looking for frogs; aerial and ground bird surveys; large mammal surveys (predators like wolf, coyote), moose and caribou; small mammals; and soils and vegetation. We found five rare plant species, all of which we think we can avoid; five bird species that have setback distances so we have to stay away from the nests. We found two bird species at risk – the flycatcher and the nighthawk. When we develop the project we have to keep an eye out for these species and make sure we’re not impacting their nests. We found 14 moose, 9 caribou tracks (no caribou), and lots of furbearers – beaver, muskrat, fisher, marten, lynx, red fox and weasel. We looked for heritage or archaeological sites, and found none. Project Timelines Timelines are dependent on getting the necessary approvals from the province and internal approvals from Rio Tinto. We’re in the environmental assessment process now, so we have to go to the communities, explain the project and get feedback. We have to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) that outlines the environmental baseline, what we will do as a project, what impacts we may have and how we’re going to reduce those impacts. Then the province will decide if that is acceptable. If that is completed in early 2014, we will apply for regulatory approval for site preparation work. We would build a camp first, and upgrade the access trail to a road. We would also do site clearing activities like clearing of trees and soils, and construction of some concrete foundations and some of the buildings.