New Gold released the Water Management Strategy Statement in June 2023, defining our commitment to water stewardship across the company.
At the Rainy River Mine, cross-disciplinary teams work together to align priorities and advance water management and stewardship work. Through the consideration of different perspectives and experiences, the team at Rainy River is able to strategically prioritize water projects. In 2024, staff completed upgrades to the discharge system which allowed for an increase in treated water to be released from site, further improving water management onsite while also increasing clean water in the environment. Rainy River has also continued to work on improvements to water treatment in both the passive and active treatment systems. These improvements support the life of mine water management strategies.
“Rainy River operates in a complex water environment that experiences both surplus and deficit water scenarios,” said Emily O’Hara, Manager of Water Strategy and Stewardship. “The cross-functional water team operates to effectively reduce our water risks and improves environmental performance.”
In 2023, Rainy River achieved an externally verified AAA rating for the Towards Sustainable Mining Water Stewardship Protocol. This is the highest level of assessment and demonstrates New Gold’s commitment towards water and the dedicated focus it requires. As part of this work and to improve the standard of our external water reporting, EMM Consulting, for a second year in a row, completed a third-party verification of water data reported in New Gold’s 2023 Environment, Social and Governance Reports and the Rainy River Annual Compliance Reports. This was the second year New Gold obtained external verification, and the findings again identified no fatal flaws with reporting. Obtaining feedback on our external reporting improves our processes and increases the quality of our reporting. A summary of findings from the external verification is shown:
Develop a process to complete review of reports for minor data and calculation inconsistencies;
Include a summary of the sampling methodology and other matters pertinent to the monitoring program;
Develop process to ensure all condition objectives are included in the reports;
Consider presenting tabulated raw data in the appendix and include detection limits; and
Maintain a database of raw water balance model inputs and outputs.
New Gold welcomes feedback on our external reporting and will work to incorporate the recommendations in the 2024 reporting. Any further feedback or questions on the 2023 ESG Reports can be directed to sustainability@newgold.com.
The post Verifying Our Performance: Water Management at Rainy River Mine first appeared on Rainy River Mine.