Cogema breaking new ground

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Cogema Resources, a company that has made a commitment to hire Aboriginal people for its northern Saskatchewan operations, has secured a progressive international environmental designation for its McClean Lake uranium mine.

The mine, located 750 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, has been recognized as ISO 14001 compliant. The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) is based in Geneva. Its 14001 designation is bestowed on a company if it agrees to follow extensive environmental guidelines and enters into a voluntary monitoring process. The ISO standard is recognized in more than 90 countries.

"It's a certification of our environmental management system and it's quite a process to go through," Cogema public relations officer Alun Richards explained. "It means the McClean Lake's mine, mill and support facilities have achieved an international set of standards for maintaining an effective environmental management system."

ISO requires an audit by an outside entity (in this case, accounting firm KPMG's Vancouver office) to examine a company's activities and rate them. Richards said the auditing process was extensive.

"It means we're operating to standards set by an independent third party and it requires codification, communication and auditing. So there's a whole set of manuals that have to be followed. It's a site-wide system. As part of the certification process we've set objectives, they're broken down into targets as internal guidelines for a number of things. There's about 100 procedures, 1,000 work instructions and 200 forms. It covers all of our activities that have an environmental or quality aspect on the site."

Customers all over the world know what they're getting if a company is rated ISO 14001 compliant. And it's not a one-time thing.

"It's very systematic," Richards said, "an auditing system that goes on all the time. We just went through a six-month audit so the auditors who originally recommended us for certification have since come back to review what we did and how it's going. So it's an ongoing process. We did quite well on this audit."

The company has to file a plan that is available to the public. That means the company must follow the plan or risk being exposed to potential legal trouble if things go wrong.

Cogema has also made a commitment to maintain progressive Aboriginal relations by working with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. The company has set hiring goals of 50 per cent northern Saskatchewan residents. It estimates that 80 per cent of those northerners will be Aboriginal. Richards wasn't aware if there was a connection between the relationship the company has with Aboriginal people and organizations- whose traditional values require protecting the environment- and the push to upgrade its environmental practices to levels beyond what's required by law.

"I can't say there's a connection," he said. "It's a quality thing. You make the commitment corporately that you're going to this and it becomes one of your goals just like anything else and you do what you have to do to achieve it."

The Saskatchewan company was only the second company in Canada to have a site declared up to ISO 14001 standards. Cogema is among the world leaders in this area.

"We're the first uranium mine in North America. We're not the first uranium mine in the world because our parent company's mine in France just beat us. So it's rare enough in the mining industry," said Richards.