2008 Sustainability Summary Duck Pond Operations letter from the General manager this year marked the first full year of throughout the year we worked closely with production for Duck Pond Operations. stakeholders to engage them in our activities, Sustainability is a key component of our working together for mutual benefit. Duck operation, one that our entire workforce Pond encourages employees to bring ideas deeply values. We are committed to the health and issues that impact operations forward for and safety of employees, environmental discussion. the Employee relations Committee responsibility, quality and productivity, and we has proved successful in this regard by strive to make the operation strong and viable. facilitating open, unbiased dialogue between employee representatives and management. Over the past year we demonstrated We continued to engage with community commitment to our operations and worked and government stakeholders through diligently to meet goals set in 2007. Duck meetings, presentations and conferences, Pond’s dedication to injury prevention and as well as investments in provincial and environmental responsibility is paramount community programs and services. and proved successful in 2008 as site safety performance improved markedly with the end of the year presented economic a 56% improvement in total reportable challenges that required difficult decisions incident Frequency (TRIF). Other notable and fundamental changes to the operation. accomplishments for the year included a the Duck Pond team demonstrated their successful seasonal habitat restoration commitment to the operation and resolved program, commitment to spill prevention to increase productivity in 2009. Employees with zero reportable spills, and an enhanced prove to be our greatest resource and their mine and surface rescue program with contributions have been and will continue over 60% of employees having received to be invaluable. emergency and/or first aid training. looking forward to 2009 we aspire to improve the team put forth plans to meet goals set for on our safety record and achieve our goal of 2008 and i’m pleased to report many of them no lost time injuries. in addition, throughout have been successfully completed. a dust the year we will develop plans to produce a suppression study onsite and at the turf Point marketable lead concentrate to maximize port facility was conducted, and new practices available resources in the coming years. have subsequently been implemented. Human resources policies and compensation packages We hope you find our 2008 sustainability were put into effect and strengthened labour summary informative and look forward to strategies. improvements in milling process sharing further details with you in next realized significant quality improvements year’s report. in our copper and zinc concentrates. in terms of exploration, significant work was Bob Kelly completed within the operation’s property General manager boundaries with encouraging results. 2008 SuStainability Summary Summary of Operations the Duck Pond Operation is located in Central unfortunately, in the last quarter of the newfoundland and includes a ramp-driven year, we were forced to lay off 17 full time underground copper-zinc mine and a mill employees and 6 temporary term employees that produces 1800 tonnes of ore per day. and modify work schedules for the rest the operation has produced copper and zinc of the site, due to a challenging economic concentrates since January of 2007, but has climate. With the exception of the mill all areas only been in commercial production since including staff were scheduled to work one 2008. the Operations is 100% owned by hour less each day for all of 2009 only. those teck resources limited and had a workforce who were let go were provided with severance of approximately 240 at year end. and offered job placement/counseling services. We are grateful to our employees, who rose to Goals and Objectives from 2008 the challenge and have committed to seeing aiming for zero harm to people, process the Operation through this difficult period. and equipment through employee training and education remained paramount with throughout the year the operation continued reductions in safety statistics being seen to strengthen associations with local throughout the year. medical aids saw an communities through meetings with town improvement of 56% from 2007 and total councils, special interest and service groups. reportable injury frequency rate also Emergency response plans were updated improved by 56%. and support agreements have been made with area volunteer fire departments. as part of our commitment to improvements in both process and environmental initiatives, Goals for 2009 the Operation successfully implemented With health, safety and environment remaining a lead recovery circuit as well as a dust a primary focus, the operation will focus its suppression strategy at the turf Point energy into optimizing performance and ship-loading facility. as a result, we were efficiencies. We plan to implement programs able to minimize fugitive dust to the that will assist in realizing improvements, environment. more information on each of including the Courageous leadership process these initiatives can be found in dedicated to engage all employees and promote safety and environment sections below. safety awareness. the implementation of Continuous improvement teams will Our focus on strengthening labour practices further solicit and implement employee centered on an internal human resources suggestions to enhance work environments audit and work with our Employee relations and improve operating efficiencies. Committee. this committee, comprised of employee nominated representation One of our goals for the coming year is to from all departments, is a formal means of develop plans for production of a commercially communicating issues between employees viable lead concentrate product over the life and management. to date, the committee of mine. as a first step, we have been working has been successful in enhancing policies to better remove lead residue from copper and procedures, improving the flow of milling process. lead recovery technology communication, and facilitating conflict (called a “lead circuit”) produces a higher resolution. in addition to resolving the many quality copper product and allowing us to issues that arise such as those associated collect enough lead concentrate to sell as with operating the camp, the committee an additional product. the new lead circuit is now moving towards continuous proved successful in removing lead from the improvement. a structure has been put copper concentrate in 2008 and the feasibility in place to capture ideas and implement of a lead concentrate will be explored in the solutions utilizing the skills and talents of coming year. Furthermore, there are additional employees themselves. the committee is plans to optimize lead circuit processes and responsible for facilitating that process and performance of the tailings management area. encourage increased employee participation. DuCk POnD | 3 in terms of environmental initiatives, Environmental Performance there are plans to conduct site specific Environmental performance in 2008 was very environmental hygiene testing, research an good. the operation experienced one 150l oil engineered wetland project and implement spill during the year. this incident was dealt an environmental management system to with immediately, resulting in minimal impact better manage compliance tasks, assist with on the environment. additionally, the operation root cause problem solving, and provide experienced an excursion of regulated discharge definition of roles and responsibilities. criteria from the operations final discharge in December 2008. actions were taken to Safety and Health cease any further discharge immediately upon Health and safety remains the top priority discovery of the exceedance. Further plans were at Duck Pond, and our commitment to implemented to prevent future exceedances. excellence has resulted in improvements across a range of annual safety statistics. For Environmental Programs example, total reportable incident Frequency the startup of the lead circuit in 2008 called (TRIF) improved by 56% from 2007 to 2008. for a new approach to water treatment and Duck Pond offers standard and advanced Duck Pond was successful in meeting regulatory first aid training to all employees and over obligations for tailings management. towards 60% of employees have received training. year end, improvements in quality control at the Employees are engaged in health and safety assay lab were introduced to improve internal initiatives and participate enthusiastically testing results. additionally, plans were put in in Joint Health and Safety Committees, as place to implement a data management program, worker health and safety representatives, EQWin, and an Environmental, Health & Safety and as participants in Workplace Hazardous information system, Siteline, to assist with the materials information System training. implementation of iSO 14001 Environmental management Systems standards in 2009. Duck Pond’s Emergency response plans EmS registration is scheduled for Q1 2011. were revised in 2008 and are supported by the Surface Emergency response and One of our key environmental priorities is to underground Emergency response teams. maintain wastewater quality within regulatory these teams are comprised employees discharge criteria. Significant efforts