WINNIPEG AREA MAYOR'S NEW PROPOSAL TO MINE SILICA SAND RAISES QUESTIONS

Rejected proposal by the Manitoba Government to mine silica sand from a southeastern Manitoba aquifer being revised by Sio Silica’s new VP

“Our project is safe and is one that will supply Manitoba and the world with a much-needed product, without harming the environment. In fact, silica sand is essential to many green energy projects such as solar panels and is a critical component for semi-conductors. Unfortunately, we didn’t adequately communicate the details of the project in our last application with the Government of Manitoba. We are committed to getting it right this time.” -- Carla Devlin, Property Developer serving as Mayor of East St. Paul, MB

Hundreds of Manitoba property owners in eight municipalities had registered their opposition to a proposal put forward by Calgary-based Sio Silica that could affect their drinking water as a result of the drilling of over 7700 wells south and east of Winnipeg over the next 24 years to extract millions of tonnes of ultra-pure silica sand for use in the production of solar panels, semiconductors and batteries.

The proposed process would involve injected air to bring up a mixture of water and sand from the water table.

Premier Wab Kinew decided in February 2024 not to grant a licence to Sio Silica based on concerns by the provincial Clean Environment Commission of the risks to the aquifer and the subsurface geology.

Interview with Dennis LeNeveu, spokesperson for community opposition

By Suzanne Forcese

WT: WaterToday has had an on-going conversation with you Dennis since 2020 regarding silica sand in Manitoba. Please introduce yourself to our viewers giving us a brief bio and your involvement with the silica sand projects.

LeNeveu: I hold a B.Sc. honours physics; M.Sc. biophysics; and a B.Ed. I worked for twenty years at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment in Pinawa, Manitoba, first as the Site Safety and Radiation Protection Officer and then as a researcher on the disposal of Canada’s high-level nuclear fuel waste.

After retirement I was asked by a group, What the Frack Manitoba, to help provide scientific information on the proposed silica sand mine at Wanipigow, Manitoba.

In 2019 I was asked to help with the local opposition to the proposed CanWhite (now rebranded as Sio Silica) silica sand mine near Vivian, Manitoba.

In January of 2022, CanWhite changed its name to Sio Silica to better reflect its change of focus on high purity silica applications rather than sand for hydraulic fracking.

In 2023 I was accepted as an official participant (DLN) in the Clean Environment Committee (CEC) Hearings into the extraction of silica sand near Vivian.

WT: Earlier this year WT reported that in February 2024 Premier Wab Kinew and the new NDP Government of Manitoba decided not to grant Sio Silica a licence to extract silica sand from the aquifer that could potentially affect a large swath of Southeastern Manitoba’s drinking water.

What has changed since then?

LeNeveu: On July 21, 2024, Sio Silica gave a presentation to the Brokenhead First Nation on a proposal for manufacturing on reserve land of silicon metal from their high purity silica sand for solar panels and other applications.

In August 2024, Sio Silica hired the mayor of East St. Paul as vice president.

WT: WaterToday reached out to Mayor Carla Devlin, Mayor of East St. Paul, MB, whose role as the new VP of Sio Silica will be to oversee daily operations and build relationships with community and First Nations members to ensure that everyone understands the benefits of the project to community and economy.

Ms. Devlin provided us with the following:

Our focus remains on ensuring the highest standards of environmental safety while recognizing the global importance of providing critical minerals. It's important to note that our process does not use any chemicals. The minimal water extracted from the sand is treated with UV light before being returned to the environment. With a scientific approach guiding our efforts, we aim to deliver a project that reflects our commitment to both environmental stewardship and responsible resource development.

It's important to note that our process utilizes water well drilling technologies used every day, locally and around the world. and we do not use any chemicals for the production of the sand or treatment of the water.

Dennis, can you comment on Ms. Devlin's statement please.

LeNeveu: Since the new proposal has yet to be submitted to the Manitoba Approvals Branch, I can only comment on what was presented in the previous rejected proposal.

The Sio Silica November 2023 Presentation to Investors and the US Security Exchange Commission states:

“Metix and Mintek, world leaders in silicon smelting and metallurgical engineering products, have successfully created silicon metal from Sio’s high purity silica. This is the first time silicon metal was created successfully from silica sand.”

Metix and Mintex are two companies involved in the SisAl Pilot project (a consortium of 22 partners from 9 European countries) to produce silicon metal from the smelting of high purity silica sand and quartz stones using aluminum to remove the oxygen in silicon dioxide (silica) rather than the developed method of using carbon.

I would also like to comment on the following scientific reference:

A paper by Bullón Camarasa, published May 2022 in Proceedings of the Silicon for the Chemical & Solar Industry XVI - ISBN 978-82-692919-0-2 states:

At an anecdotal level, it can be verified that normally polysilicon manufacturers indicated that beach-type sand is the origin of metallurgical silicon as they don´t know that this type of sand cannot be introduced into electric arc furnaces, whose raw material is quartz in stones, never sand.”

Sio Silica has not produced any evidence and data from Metix and Mintex on the amount and purity of silicon metal produced from Sio’s high purity sand. Sio’s own words “for the first time” and the literature demonstrate that there is no currently established commercial method for the production of silicon metal from high purity silica sand. Quartz stones are required. From this evidence it appears that Sio Silica’s proposal to manufacture silicon metal from their high purity silica sand is not possible at this time.

WT: Can you comment on the ‘ultra pure silica sand’ claim.

LeNeveu: 4. On Dec 5, 2022, Sio Silica Corporation (Sio Silica) contracted Stantec Consulting Ltd (Stantec) to prepare a Technical Report Summary of the silica sand purity for the Sio Silica minerals claims near Vivian Manitoba.

On November 13, 2023, Pyrophyte Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company, entered into a business combination agreement with Sio Silica to promote capital acquisition and share trading. The Stantec report was submitted to the SEC to acquire access for trading of Sio Silica shares on the New York Stock Exchange Extensive test results throughout the property show that magnetic separation used by Sio Silica was successful in increasing sand purity from a mean of 99.86% SiO2 to 99.91% SiO2.

The Stantec report states; “The 99.99% SiO2 and low iron content (<100ppm Fe) are typically marketed to manufacturers of solar glass, smart glass for computing and mobile device applications, and semiconductors, among other uses, and receive a premium compared to 95% SiO2 purity.”

Stantec did not conduct extensive acid-base accounting testing of the entire deposit to evaluate the potential for acid rock drainage as required by federal MEND guidelines.

The production of silicon metal was not mentioned in the report.

However, in July 2023 the Government of Manitoba and RCT Solutions of Germany, who are allied with Sio Silica, signed a memorandum of understanding for a three-billion-dollar solar cell manufacturing proposal in Manitoba.

The paper by Camarasa gives the critical purity level for production of silicon metal by the SisAl method referred to by Sio as less than 2 ppm of boron and phosphorus (B and P).

The Stantec report did not quantify the boron content of the silica sand. The Stantec report gives the phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) concentration of the sand as 0.01 weight percent which is above the 2-ppm level for phosphorus contamination.

The Sio Silica Environment Act Proposal (EAP) for the silica sand extraction reports that boron is elevated in the sandstone formation near Vivian.

Thus, the Stantec and EAP data indicates that the Sio Silica sand has unsuitably high B and P levels for production of silicon metal using the SisAl method that Sio Silica claims was used to make silicon metal “for the first time” from their sand.

Sio Silica is basing their latest efforts to promote the project on the large economic and societal benefits that would result from large scale manufacturing of silicon metal for solar panels using the high purity Sio Silica sand.

The available evidence indicates that silicon metal cannot be made from Sio Silica sand by any established method.

WT: Both Mayor Devlin and the Sio Silica website claim the proprietary borehole extraction as a safe and proven method and that the impact on the local aquifer is almost net zero.

Le Neveu: The CEC report on the Sio Silica extraction of silica sand states:

Sio Silica proposes to mine silica sand using a novel approach known as airlift, in which air pumped down wells into a layer of loosely consolidated sand will draw up a mixture of sand and water. This airlift method is an established method of extracting water from wells.... The commission does not have sufficient confidence that the level of risk posed to an essential source of drinking water for the region has been adequately defined.

There are many unaddressed project detriments documented in the CEC Hearing and in public comments by Dr. E. Pip and others, such as land subsidence at the extraction sites, collapse into sand extraction cavities of the pyritic and selenium laden shale aquitard separating the two regional carbonate and sandstone aquifers, mixing of relatively lower quality carbonate aquifer water with the higher quality sandstone aquifer water which is forbidden by Manitoba groundwater regulations, acid drainage and selenium contamination when the large volume of collapsed shale is brought to the surface with the sand, injection into the aquifers, of project diesel fumes and microbes, by the compressors used for the airlift extraction, and undemonstrated return of potentially contaminated process water to the aquifer following filtration and UV radiation.

WT: In your opinion, what actions would be required by Sio Silica in a new proposal?

LeNeveu: Sio Silica claims that they could address documented project concerns through a licence that would require a stepwise process to evaluate and mitigate concerns.

Such data gathering and essential information on environmental detriment must be at the proposal stage so that the viability of a project can be determined before the granting of a licence.

Sio Silica should conduct independently monitored field testing, acid–base accounting testing, and documentation of the safety and viability of their processes and manufacturing methods before submitting a revised environment act proposal. Granting a licence without this essential testing would be like trying to close the barn door after the horses have bolted and would provide a further basis for risky investment.

Related: https://www.watertoday.ca/viewarticle.asp?article=158