Environmental Impact Assessment Of The Mountain Pine Ridge ...

Noise pollution will result from cutting, boring and blasting activities and routine machine operating
activities taking place at the mining site; and from tractor-trailer operating activities along road
alignments. Noise resulting from cutting, boring and blasting activities is anticipated to be
intermittent, occurring on a weekly or bi-weekly basis only, and otherwise are not anticipated to
travel extensively beyond the mining site owing to the dampening effect of the granite material itself,
as well as its sub-grade extraction. Routine machine operation and tractor-trailer transport are not
anticipated to produce noise levels significantly in excess or routine highway noise levels, or
approximately 60 db, however, workers in either case will be issued protective gear during working
hours to offset any risk of hearing loss. In all cases, noise travel will be least during daylight hours
when air density is least, and therefore all of the above-referenced noise producing activities will be
kept to daylight hours of operation.
Site Decommissioning & Rehabilitation Plan
All stone dust, rubble and fragments not suited to processing for export will either be passed
through a crusher for the production and sale of graded chip stone, or will be mixed with previously
removed overburden and topsoil to prevent the formation of eroding, subterranean, high-velocity
groundwater travel zones. Overburden and topsoils will be bladed over the exposed granite
basement rock in their pre-removal orientation, graded into a low-erosion profile, and then
compacted into place prior to being re-seeded with milpa rice to further reduce erosion and to
promote natural re-colonization of the area by local vegetation. The transverse section mined
previously to the section being actively mined will be used for heavy equipment access; and the
transverse section mined prior to those two sections will be decommissioned and rehabilitated with
spoil from the two subsequent sections.
Assuming then that each transverse section might span as much as 150 meters width (i.e. between
the branches of Pinol Creek) by 100 meters length (i.e. along the long axis of the ridgeline), then
not more than approximately 3.75 acres of land surface would be expected to be actively mined at
any given time, and not more than 10 acres (i.e. three adjoining transverse sections), would be
expected to be in the process of being mined, filled or rehabilitated at any given time.
Staff Requirements
A total of 65 mining staff are estimated to be engaged by CMCML at full scale operation, and
another 55 personnel will be engaged in administration, sales, machine and transport operations
between the mining site and the factory floor. No staff are anticipated to reside at the mining site.
A total of 4 watchmen will occupy 3 shifts / day, 7 days per week, but also will not be present for
more than 12 hours during any single shift at the mining site.
The Mountain Pine Ridge Granite Quarry EIA / Ecoworks Page 24 of 167