Summary

• The Ontario government intended to move radioactive waste from the shore of Lake Nipissing to a former mine site outside Sudbury, Ont.
• A lack of consultation around the new location led to strong local opposition, and delayed the remediation project conducted by Nipissing First Nation.
• The waste has now been moved to a disposal site outside Sarnia, Ont., and Aamjiwnaang First Nation, where emissions from the industrial area known as Chemical Valley have affected local air quality.

For decades, radioactive waste sat near the shore of Lake Nipissing. It looked like an innocuous pile of gravel in what was otherwise a stretch of forest. People began using it to backfill lots, fill spaces under decks and build fire pits. In the 1970s and ’80s, Nipissing First Nation began using it to build roads. 

It wasn’t normal gravel, though. It was mine tailings, containing the metal niobium, left there when the Nova Beaucage mine shuttered in 1956 after just seven months of operation. 

“The company just walked away and left it with no remediation at all,” Geneviève Couchie, business operations manager at Nipissing First Nation, said. Couchie led a project to clean up the tailings, which first started in 2019. After being interrupted by COVID-19 shutdowns, the remediation resumed in spring 2024 and lasted almost two years.

In the meantime, Couchie told The Narwhal, she fielded concerns about groundwater and lake contamination from residents living close to the site or to a nearby property owned by Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation that also stored the low-level radioactive tailings. Couchie said she struggled to get satisfactory answers from government agencies.

“The workers wore hazmat suits, and I remember saying from the beginning, ‘How can I tell people they have nothing to worry about when these guys are in full on suits?’ They’re literally 20 feet from someone’s window,” Couchie said. The majority of the workers remediating the site were from the nation, and dressed in protective gear so as not to carry radioactive dust home on their clothes. 

The plan was to load the waste into trucks to be transported to a tailings management area at Agnew Lake, in Sudbury District. It is the decommissioned site of a former mine, near the Township of Nairn and Hyman, and about 150 kilometres from Nipissing First Nation. The nation first had to excavate nearly 50,000 metric tonnes of the radioactive material — enough to build the Statue of Liberty, twice.

But the project faced another unexpected delay. The province had attempted to relocate the waste without consulting the Nairn community, sparking public outcry. Locals organized public meetings to raise awareness and ultimately stop the transfer. 

Eventually, in July 2025 — after nearly a year of advocacy in Nairn, and delay for Nipissing First Nation — the province capitulated, finding another place for the waste to go. This was welcome news for Nipissing First Nation, which is now hoping to transform the scarred land into a lakeside green space for the community to enjoy after years of worry.

“We just wanted to see this material moved off [Nipissing First Nation] lands, and so it was an unexpected disappointment that things were delayed like they were,” Couchie said. “We were pleased that they did end up finding another disposal site.”

“But,” Couchie said, it was “eye opening as well, that there was only one other facility in Ontario that was prepared to accept this.”

That facility is close to another Indigenous community — Aamjiwnaang First Nation, in the Sarnia region, where emissions from refineries and petrochemical plants have earned the area the moniker “Chemical Valley.” 

Sarnia facility accepting radioactive waste from Nipissing

The new destination for the radioactive tailings is Clean Harbors, a hazardous waste facility in Corunna, Ont. — 645 kilometres from its original dumping ground. It’s close to both Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia, which have experienced persistent air quality issues related to nearby industry.

Clean Harbors is the only government-licensed hazardous waste management complex in Ontario, and is “uniquely positioned,” its website reads, to offer safe disposal of naturally occurring radioactive material like the niobium tailings. 

But the facility’s history is dotted with dust-ups over environmental safety. In 2013, neighbours of the Clean Harbors site won a civil lawsuit over the impact of the waste facility’s emissions on their health and daily lives.

In 2019 the company was fined $100,000 for discharging contaminated smoke after a filter cloth soaked with coolant, oils and metal particles caught fire.

When the province conducted a study on environmental stressors in the Sarnia area in 2023, it found that while the majority of the 870 reports from residents about industrial pollution were related to petrochemical industries and refineries, a significant minority — 219 — were “related to the waste incineration facility in the area (Clean Harbors).”

And in 2025, the Ministry of Environment fined Clean Harbors $100,000 for failing to comply with an equipment requirement for monitoring the excavation of a waste-holding basin. 

Clean Harbors did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions about these claims and findings.

In a section of their 2025 annual report on legal, environmental and regulatory compliance risks, Clean Harbors asserted: “We are now, and may in the future be, a defendant in lawsuits brought by parties alleging environmental damage, personal injury and/or property damage, which may result in our payment of significant amounts.”

Aamjiwnaang First Nation Chief Janelle Nahmabin told The Narwhal she had not received any information about the niobium waste that was trucked to Clean Harbors nearly a year ago. Other environmental groups The Narwhal reached out to, including Climate Action Sarnia-Lambton, had not heard of this waste transfer, either.

“The plan now has been executed in a very different way,” said Brennain Lloyd, project coordinator at Northwatch, a northeastern Ontario environmental advocacy group. “It’s moving the waste into the territory of another First Nation that is already heavily impacted by all of the industrial activities.”

‘Under a real nuclear shadow’: radioactive waste in northern Ontario

The company behind the Nova Beaucage mine was looking for much-desired uranium in the early days of the Cold War. 

It found trace amounts of it on a small island in Lake Nipissing, along with niobium, a naturally occurring mineral used to strengthen and lighten steel, which is useful when building electronics, cars, bridges and pipelines. After excavating, the company barged the ore across the lake to a mill they established on shore, on Nipissing First Nation territory.

“In northeastern Ontario, we live under a real nuclear shadow,” Lloyd said.

In a letter to the federal Impact Assessment Agency in February 2026, the Anishinabek Nation cited the Nova Beaucage tailings as an example of the legacy of contamination that First Nations have been disproportionately impacted by due to poor government diligence. The letter puts the “toxic cocktail from Sarnia chemical valley” near Aamjiwnaang First Nation in the same category.

It was written in response to the proposal by the federally mandated Nuclear Waste Management Organization to store radioactive waste from nuclear power plants outside Ignace, Ont., a northern township between Thunder Bay and the Manitoba border. This waste has been temporarily stored in safe, but impermanent, containers for decades and finding a permanent solution has become an increasingly pressing issue — one that has only grown as Ontario ramps up nuclear power generation with small modular reactors in Bowmanville and a proposed full-scale nuclear facility in Port Hope. 

From First Nations in the Ignace area to those along the Ottawa River, concerned by leaks from a nuclear laboratory in 2024, communities have been pressing for better consultation when big radioactive waste decisions are made. The case of the Township of Nairn and Hyman illustrates why.

In June 2024, a Nairn and Hyman town councillor happened upon the planned dumping site for the niobium waste while out riding an all-terrain vehicle, or ATV, said Belinda Ketchabaw, the chief administrative officer of the township of less than 500 people. According to the township’s website, the councillor saw roadwork being done to facilitate the transportation of material the Ministry of Mines later told residents was naturally occurring radioactive material. Before that, residents say they had no idea about the relocation plan.

“We were aware that [the Agnew Lake] site was within our township. It’s been there for many, many years,” Ketchabaw told The Narwhal. “What we weren’t aware of is that the cover over the existing tailing site had depleted, through either people going across it on ATVs, or just rainwater eroding the cover.”

The Agnew Lake site already needed remediation, after uranium mining and milling operations ceased there in 1983. Tests from 2023 by the Ministry of Mines found uranium, radium, arsenic and more at the site. In a letter sent to the federal nuclear safety commission in the months after the councillor’s discovery, the township argued the arrival of niobium waste introduced “additional risks to an already precarious situation.” 

The province’s idea, according to an undated letter from the Ministry of Transportation, was for the niobium gravel to help provide an additional, less radioactive groundcover for the existing materials.

“I guess what they were trying to do is, for lack of a better word, kill two birds with one stone,” Ketchabaw said. She made it her personal mission to get answers about the waste disposal that she said were not provided by the province — although the Transportation Ministry letter, uploaded to the Nipissing First Nation website, says the site was identified by the Ministry of Mines as a potential disposal location in 2016. This same letter explained that studies done by the ministry in 2012 determined the potential “risks of the tailings to human health were low.”

Ontario’s Ministry of Energy and Mines did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions, including around its protocol for informing communities about plans to store radioactive waste nearby.

“Ministries that are doing this type of work have to have advanced and meaningful consultation with municipalities, First Nations and residents,” Ketchabaw said. Agnew Lake is a source of drinking water for the Nairn and Hyman communities. She said they were given no assurances the environment and health of the community would be protected with this disposal.

“We weren’t consulted at all in this project. We came upon it by mistake,” Ketchabaw said. “It really felt like they were hiding this, like they were just kind of trying to sneak it in the back door.”

Updated on May 6, 2026, at 12:10 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct a photo caption that stated nearly 50,000 metric tonnes of material were removed from the picture site, when in fact that collective amount was removed from multiple sites across the nation.

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Indigenous leaders from the Similkameen Valley are “deeply disappointed” by a provincial decision to approve a contentious mine expansion in their territories — emphasizing that they did not give consent for the project to move forward.

On Monday, the B.C. government announced it had issued Mines Act and Environmental Management Act permits for the New Ingerbelle expansion of the Copper Mountain mine near Princeton, B.C., in smǝlqmíx (Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Band) territory.

The expansion project will see the century-old mining operation revive its old Ingerbelle open-pit gold and copper mine site near nməlqytkʷ (the Similkameen River). The expansion will extend the mine’s operation until 2047, the province said.

In the province’s statement, it acknowledged that the mine is in the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands’ territories.

“The permitting review process included engagement with both First Nations, along with technical review by provincial agencies to assess environmental impacts, tailings management and public safety,” it said.

However, a joint statement issued Monday by leadership of both bands says that “chiefs, councillors, natural resource departments and community members of the bands did not give consent for this project to move forward.”

“The smǝlqmíx and our neighbours that choose to be here forever will have to deal with the consequences long after the profits and monies have left the valley,” said the statement.

“The chiefs and councils of the Upper Similkameen Indian Band and the Lower Similkameen Indian Band are deeply disappointed by the Province of British Columbia’s decision … to approve the New Ingerbelle Expansion Proposal for the Copper Mountain mine.”

The First Nations noted that participation agreements they signed with the mine earlier this month “expressly state that advance consent to New Ingerbelle was not provided.”

The new participation agreements with the mine that were signed by the bands replace older ones that were signed in 2019. They include “community benefits and environmental terms related to the mine operations and protecting the Similkameen River,” “stability and certainty” for mining operations and “structured processes” between Upper and Lower Similkameen and the mine “to work together on monitoring mine operations and mitigating its environmental impacts.”

The bands said they will now review the approval conditions and reasons for the decision, and “assess all available options to ensure that the waters, all living things and the lands will be taken care of.”

Separating the Ingerbelle pit from the mine’s main site is the 197-kilometre-long Similkameen River. Part of the expansion project will see a bridge constructed over the river to connect the two sites.

The mine’s already existing 192-metre tailings dam — roughly equivalent in height to a 58-storey building — will also be increased by an additional 87 metres, according to the province’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).

Meanwhile, Robert Carter, senior vice-president for Hudbay Minerals’ operations in Canada, thanked the province and the Upper and Lower Similkameen “for their open and efficient collaboration throughout the process.” 

“Through our strong commitment to responsible resource development and the expansion of copper production from Copper Mountain, we will be continuing to provide a metal that is vital for electrification and the global energy transition and supporting B.C.’s Critical Mineral Strategy,” Carter said in a release on Monday.

The project’s approval comes less than a month after the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals told IndigiNews that the expansion proposal still required further consultation with the Upper and Lower Similkameen.

The spokesperson also said the expansion plan had to “meet or exceed B.C.’s world-class environmental standards.”

Last May, a pipe failure at the mine site resulted in 3,000 litres of mine tailings seeping into an area beside the Similkameen River. The B.C. Ministry of Environment and Parks told IndigiNews that it’s unknown if the mine water entered the river or was absorbed into the ground.

In 2024, the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy issued six fines to Copper Mountain mine totalling $105,348. 

The string of offences, which occurred between 2019 and 2022, all relate to the mine’s unauthorized seepage and discharge of mine water from its tailings pond into the surrounding waterways of the Similkameen River and Wolfe Creek, which both flow through the mine’s area of operation.

In 2021, the mine at one point exceeded the legal limit of copper waste discharged from its tailings pond into Wolfe Creek by more than 4,500 per cent.

Two years ago, one Lower Similkameen member spoke of a time where you could drink the water from Wolfe Creek, which is a tributary of the Similkameen River. Despite a series of mine contamination events into the creek, a senior representative for the Copper Mountain mine told the community that she would still drink the water.

In January, a province-wide council of outdoor recreationists declared the Similkameen River among the province’s most endangered rivers – citing the mine’s expansion as the main threat to the waterway.

Last November, y̓ilmixʷm (Chief) kalʔlùpaɋʹn Keith Crow of Lower Similkameen told regional officials that leaders were failing the Similkameen River, which “had been black for the last month” due to poor water quality. 

Lower Similkameen Elder Rob Edward listed the mine as one of the reasons for the river’s decline. He noted that he hasn’t been able to fish out of the Similkameen River since 1982. 

In 2022, Crow told IndigiNews that the Similkameen River is the lifeblood of the valley.

“If we lose that, we lose our identity. We lose who we are,” he said.

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More than 5,000 wild species are at some risk of extinction in Canada, largely because the places they live are disappearing. Yet despite repeated promises, Canada appears to have failed to meet its target of protecting 25 per cent of its forests, grasslands, rivers, lakes, peatlands and oceans by 2025. 

As of December 2024 the country had conserved 13.8 per cent of land and fresh water and 15.5 of ocean areas — falling “well short” of its targets, Akaash Maharaj, policy director at the conservation charity Nature Canada, said in an interview. While the final accounting isn’t in yet, it’s unlikely Canada closed the gap in the intervening year. 

A series of reports from the federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development late last year also warned Canada was not on track to meet either its 2025 target or its international commitments to conserve 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030 under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The 30-by-30 target, one of almost two dozen targets in the international agreement designed to work together to stave off catastrophic nature declines, aims to secure the habitats plants and animals need to survive and is largely regarded as the minimum needed to guard against further losses.

Nathalie Provost, Canada’s secretary of state for nature whose role in cabinet is focused on reaching the 30-by-30 target, said missing the 2025 conservation goal was “a disappointment.”

The federal government remains committed to meeting the 30-by-30 target, she said, but Ottawa needs the buy-in of provincial and territorial governments to succeed.

Finding innovative ways to finance nature protection, in line with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s commitment to cut government spending and increase investment, remains a key focus, said Provost.

Steven Guilbeault, the former Liberal environment minister who helped shepherd the global biodiversity treaty into fruition, said he remains optimistic Canada can meet its next milestone.

Not every conservation project in development across the country is reflected in the federal database where efforts are tracked, he said.

Valérie Courtois, director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, said there are more than 100 proposals for Indigenous Conserved and Protected Areas which could bring Canada closer to its conservation goals if they had the financial support they need.

But funding for long-term management remains an outstanding issue, she warned, which forces Indigenous governments to weigh large-scale conservation endeavours against other items on their already-stretched budgets. 

It’s a challenge Jerry DeMarco, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, a federal environmental watchdog, also underscored in a November report. 

DeMarco noted, for instance, that the federal government typically provided short-term funding of five years or less for Indigenous-led conservation programs, which created an inherent risk funding would not be renewed, affecting long-term outcomes.

Are Canada’s conservation milestones at odds with its critical mineral strategy?

At the same time, Canada is grappling with the economic fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and broader geopolitical tensions. In response, federal, provincial and territorial governments are pursuing new critical minerals projects with renewed vigour. 

Critical minerals, including copper, nickel and lithium, are essential components in digital technologies like cellphones and laptops, renewable energy systems such as solar panels and wind turbines and the batteries required for both. They’re also used for satellites, defence applications, including weapons and jet engines and a range of other things.

But Canada’s pursuit of new mining projects has the potential to conflict with its conservation commitments as both require large swaths of land.

In a June report, the International Energy Agency said about 35 per cent of Canada’s mineral resources important for the energy transition overlap with lands that are also important for biodiversity and remain unprotected. 

“The government is absolutely right to put economic development and economic security for Canadians at the top of the political agenda,” Maharaj, with Nature Canada, said, noting there’s a deep economic anxiety felt across the country at the moment.

However, he warned, “The only way to sustainably grow the economy so that it’s generating jobs, not just for today, but a generation hence, is to build an economy that’s based on environmental protection and the strengthening of nature.”

Tara Shea, the vice-president of regulatory and Indigenous affairs at the Mining Association of Canada, said she doesn’t see conservation and expanded mining as mutually exclusive.

The industry association supports ambitious, evidence-based actions to protect biodiversity, she said, pointing to its longstanding sustainable mining initiative, which, among other things, offers guidelines for nature conservation.

But Canada also has commitments to meet the needs of the energy transition and secure critical mineral supply chains for its allies, according to Shea. 

“In Canada, we have the minerals and the opportunity. We also benefit from robust environmental standards,” she said. “It does make sense for us to expand our sector here.”

Guilbeault, who resigned from Carney’s cabinet late last year over the prime minister’s early support of a new pipeline out of Alberta, said mining for critical minerals is necessary to combat the threats posed by climate change.

“We can’t do the transition away from fossil fuels without moving toward a world where electricity becomes the dominant source of energy,” he said. “So we have to do this, but we can do it right.”

Courtois also sees potential for both conservation and new mining, particularly in areas where mining projects can bolster communities and local economies. 

“But we can’t do that blindly, we can’t do that by ignoring the learnings that we’ve had in the last few decades around things like environmental risk,” she said.

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Cheryl Sinclair has been here before. Not this room, exactly — a conference room at Winnipeg’s Club Regent hotel — but it’s not the first time the Tyndall, Man., resident has shown up to a Sio Silica information session looking for answers.

“My concern is drilling into the aquifer, taking out sand and putting filtered water back in,” she says in an interview. “Can Sio Silica guarantee that the ground, the aquifer, will not be contaminated?”

On a Monday evening in mid-November, Sinclair is among the dozens of guests milling around at an open house hosted by the Alberta-based mining company that has spent the last decade devising a plan to extract silica sand from a southern Manitoba aquifer that serves more than 120,000 households.

The company has set up a trove of polished material: glossy handouts touting the economic benefits of the mine, posterboards outlining technical details about the proposed — and as yet unproven — airlift extraction method and its potential impacts on the aquifer, disposable water bottles wrapped in Sio Silica branding. A handful of engineers are stationed throughout the room to answer questions; some attendees hold hand-painted signs declaring their support for the project and the “#Jobs” it hopes to create; Churchill, the polar bear mascot for Winnipeg’s professional basketball team, the Sea Bears, mingles with attendees, helping promote an entry draw for game tickets.

“From my perspective, there’s an overwhelming amount of support,” Sio Silica president and East St. Paul Mayor Carla Devlin says, sitting in a small room across the hall from the event, with her private security guard at the door.

“I think that a lot of people that had questions got answers, and I think that we probably changed some minds and corrected some misinformation.” 

This is Sio Silica’s second crack at convincing the government, and the community, to approve its controversy-laden mine. 

The company believes it’s found a uniquely high-quality sand deposit that’s already low in iron — a characteristic needed for technical and industrial applications like touch-screen glass, solar panels and aerospace technology. That trait makes the sand easier and cheaper to process without the need for chemical treatments, the company says. Once purified, Sio Silica says the sand can be used to make lithium-ion batteries, fibre optics, medical glass and other advanced technologies.

“It’s like Frank’s hot sauce,” Devlin says.

The proposal has been shot down once before, when a newly elected NDP government axed the company’s environmental licence application in February 2024. The decision was one of the first major acts for the government, and bucked a years-long trend wherein Manitoba’s environmental licensing process was all but a formality. For residents of Springfield, Anola, Vivian and other communities served by the aquifer, that rejection was a hard-fought victory after years of protests, petitions, environmental hearings and local council debates.

Sio Silica has remained convinced its project has merit. In late October, more than a year and a half after the first environmental licence was denied, the company submitted a modified application — starting the licensing process from scratch. 

“I was angry,” Sinclair says of the new application. “It’s like we’ve got to go back to the battlefield and start protesting again.”

Devlin says the revised application was designed to show Sio Silica is listening to the community’s concerns. The biggest change is a significant reduction in the amount of sand the company plans to extract.

The original Vivian Sands project proposed extracting 1.36 million tonnes from more than 460 wells each year, with the wells arranged in clusters of seven. 

The new application, for the project now called “SiMBA,” proposes taking 100,000 tonnes in the first year and ramping up to a maximum of 500,000 tonnes by the fourth year. The company is now proposing to drill just 25 wells in Year 1 and scale up to 167 wells annually, this time in clusters of up to five. 

The overall footprint of the mine is projected to shrink, too. Sio Silica has access to more than 90,000 hectares of mineral claims across southern Manitoba, but plans to mine about 350 hectares in its first four years (a 45 per cent reduction from the original proposal) and 2,764 hectares over the lifetime of the project (a 66 per cent reduction). 

“We needed to show a gradual approach to build the trust and confidence,” Devlin says.

The company also plans to add filtering to its water treatment plan, to test its groundwater treatment process to “ensure compliance with provisions in an Environment Act licence,” and to draft plans to handle resident complaints and respond to any groundwater changes.

Not everyone is convinced. Katharina Stieffenhofer, a Winnipeg resident who has followed the company’s plans for years, says she still has “grave concerns” about the proposal.

“I’m concerned about the very likely injury — damage — to the aquifer, the drinking water, the landscape, the air, the roadways, and how it will impact the well-being and quality of life of Manitobans,” Stieffenhofer says.

“I’m also really concerned about their, shall we call it, public relations.”

Stieffenhofer says Sio Silica has been “greenwashing” its proposal.

“Initially they were going to use the silica sand for fracking. Then all of a sudden, we’re not doing that anymore, now it’s going to be all wonderful green economy, we’re going to make solar panels. Now this latest version is going to be for fibre optics for data because that’s the newest thing,” she says, referring to the way the company has marketed the aquifer sand.

“Who is really going to profit from this? I would say it’s not the people of Manitoba.”

In its final report, the Clean Environment Commission noted Sio Silica’s open houses and community consultation efforts were “hampered” by a lack of detail about the mining plan. The commission recommended “more effective two-way communication” with affected communities and suggested the province require Sio Silica to strike a local advisory committee where residents can weigh in on the project. 

Devlin acknowledges Sio Silica’s community engagement hasn’t been perfect, but going forward the company wants to be “an open book,” including “having community involved in [environmental oversight] committees.”  

Stieffenhofer wants to see government-funded, independent analysis of the proposed extraction method to mitigate the risks to the drinking water source.

“The silica sand acts as the kidneys and the liver. It filters our water, it has a function, and you take that away — what are we going to be left with, with 15 billion tonnes of silica sand missing?”

Devlin says the company has conducted four years of environmental monitoring that shows “no adverse effect to the aquifer, no ground movement.” 

The company has partnered with Aquatic Life, a Manitoba tech company developing groundwater monitoring tools, to provide realtime data about the Sandilands aquifer straight to community members and government.

It also plans to work with a University of Manitoba hydrology professor and PhD students to research and monitor the aquifer. Devlin says Sio Silica plans to be a “big contributor to the university” by committing research and development funding. 

Manitoba has shown it’s not completely opposed to silica sand mining. The same week it denied Sio Silica’s Environment Act licence, it approved another mining company’s plan to dig for sand in the Wapinigow region on the eastern side of the province.

In November, a third company, Silex Resources, submitted an application to mine for sand in a saline portion of the aquifer west of the Red River.

But Sio Silica’s project has been mired by political scandal: municipal council debates in Springfield unravelled to the point RCMP were called and the company’s lawyers threatened action against councillors; allegations that members of the former Progressive Conservative government pressured politicians to approve the project during the post-election transition period sparked a first-of-its-kind ethics investigation that ended with fines for the former premier and two MLAs. Two communities — Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and Springfield — have voted to reject the mine in referendums. 

Premier Wab Kinew has said the backroom political manoeuvring has left an air “of stink” around Sio Silica’s proposal, which needs clearing up before any further steps can be taken.

After nearly a decade in the province, Sio Silica isn’t ready to back away. In fact, Devlin is more optimistic than ever the project meets Manitoba’s needs.

“We check off all the boxes of a national interest project,” Devlin says, referring to the Carney government’s economic buzzword. “Everything written in [Manitoba’s] critical mineral strategy is Sio Silica. Everything the province is saying is everything that we offer, so I’m very optimistic we can move this province forward, build out our economy and boom like other provinces have.”

For residents, it means their years-long fight to protect the aquifer isn’t over either. 

The fate of Sio Silica’s mine is yet to be decided. Public comments closed Dec. 1, and the technical advisory committee will review the application and pose questions to the company before a final licensing decision is made. 

While the environment department weighs the risks and rewards of the sand mine, The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press look back on Sio Silica’s tumultuous time in Manitoba. 

Sio Silica: the first 10 years

2015

• Oct. 26, 2015 — 1993502 Alberta Ltd. stakes its first claims in southern Manitoba Feisal Somji, Sio Silica’s CEO, began looking for sand deposits, hoping to find a source of proppant — a gritty material used to hold open fractures in the ground for oil extraction — to sell to the oil and gas industry for fracking, when he arrived in Manitoba. Under the banner of three numbered Alberta companies, the Calgarian mining executive started staking claims.“A friend of mine here in Steinbach said to me: ‘There is sand underground,’ ” Somji would later say. “That was the start of our hunt for the sand here.”

2016

• Sept. 29 — Drilling begins Drilling work continued until November 2018. In 2016, the company staked more than 400 claims across 98,000 hectares.

2017

• ‘Mystery’ mineral makes headlines Miners continued to scour the region, and residents began to take notice. Local headlines swirled with speculation about the “mystery” mineral deep in the rural farmland. It was rumoured to be gold, diamonds or lithium.The numbered companies were renamed HD Minerals and CanWhite Sands.

2018

• Drill, baby, drill With communications support from Winnipeg-based land-use planning firm Landmark Planning & Design, HD Minerals began working with landowners to conduct exploratory drilling. Between 2016 and 2019, the company shelled out a total of $45,000 to landowners who allowed boreholes to be drilled on their properties.Representatives for Landmark refused to say what they were looking for.Somji later told the Canadian Mining Journal, the company sought to secure the mineral rights to the entire Carman sand deposit.By 2019, the company had staked more than 500 mining claims covering more than 117,000 hectares.

2019

• April 9–11 — The big reveal HD Minerals held its first series of public information sessions in La Broquerie, Anola and Richer, where it revealed it planned to mine silica sand from an aquifer 60 metres below ground.
• April–December — A change of plans Chief operating officer Brent Bullen joined the project in April and began assessing the quality and potential of the sand. He noticed the sand is higher purity than expected, and shifted focus to high-tech applications. Meanwhile, the company’s engineers began working on a method to extract sand from the aquifer.

2020

• May 1 — Patent-pending CanWhite submitted a patent application for its unique airlift mining method, which it said would effectively vacuum sand and water out of the aquifer through wells. 
• June — The pushback begins A group of residents, concerned the plan could damage their source of drinking water, formed an organization called Our Line in the Sand to oppose the project, starting with a protest by one of CanWhite’s properties near Anola. The group called for an in-person open house and for the province to hold Clean Environment Commission hearings to review the project.
• June 17 — A pitch to council Winnipeg based urban-planning firm Richard + Wintrup, on behalf of CanWhite Sands, made a conditional use application to Springfield’s municipal council to build a sand processing facility near Vivian.
• July 2 — CanWhite applies for an Environment Act licence for its sand processing facility The company split its proposal in two: one licence for the processing facility, and another for the mining. Residents criticized this approach, arguing it failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the mine.

• Aug. 18–Sept. 28 — An appeal to Ottawa Community groups and First Nations, including Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, the Manitoba Métis Federation and citizen group What the Frack Manitoba, wrote to Canada’s impact assessment agency seeking a federal review of the mine.
• Oct. 8 — Petitioning against the project Our Line in the Sand presented a petition with more than 1,400 signatures to the Manitoba legislature, calling for a more independent and comprehensive environmental review.

2021

• Consultation and more consultation CanWhite Sands spent the year focused on community consultations. The company held meetings with representatives for the municipalities of Tache, Beausejour, Hanover, Ste. Anne, La Broquerie, Reynolds, Brokenhead and Springfield. On June 14, CanWhite presented the project to a “small group of leaders” from Brokenhead, with provincial representatives present.
• July 23 — CanWhite applied for an Environment Act licence for the sand extraction process.
• Nov. 15 — Manitoba’s environment minister directed the Clean Environment Commission to conduct a review of CanWhite’s mining proposal In her letter to Somji, then-environment minister Sarah Guillemard cited both “significant public interest” in the project and “the need for a thorough technical review” as reasons. 
• Dec. 7 — Ottawa says no The Impact Assessment Agency declined to conduct a review, deferring to the provincial licensing process.
• Dec. 16 — CanWhite granted an environmental licence for its sand processing facility, to be built near Vivian Opponents raised concern over the licence being granted while the mining process has been referred to the Clean Environment Commission for review. 

2022

• Jan. 1 — The rebrand CanWhite Sands rebranded as Sio Silica after the original name performed poorly in brand testing.
• May 20 — The municipality is asked to change its rules Richard + Wintrup, on behalf of Sio Silica, asked Springfield council to amend its bylaws to make it easier for the company to build its processing facility.
• June 23–29 — The municipality says no Springfield council voted against amending its bylaws.Richard + Wintrup appealed the decision to the Municipal Board, a quasi-judicial provincial body that settles disputes over property assessment and planning decisions.
• June 24 — Manitoba heavyweight joins the board David Filmon, a prominent Manitoba lawyer and son of former Progressive Conservative premier Gary Filmon, was appointed to Sio Silica’s board of directors.
• Oct. 5–22 — Provincial lobbying kicks off Jeremy Sawatzy, a consulting lobbyist, registered to arrange meetings with government representatives in the economic development, natural resources and environment branches on behalf of Sio Silica. 
• Oct. 19, 20, 28 — The bylaw debacle heats up Springfield council and Sio Silica appeared before the Municipal Board for a hearing about Richard + Wintrup’s proposed zoning amendment.Legislative changes meant the board had the power to overrule Springfield council and force the municipality to enter a deal with Sio Silica.

2023

• Jan. 17 — The solar panel pitch Somji and Peter Fath, CEO of German solar panel company RCT Solutions, met with Manitoba cabinet members to propose a $3-billion solar panel plant. Fath said Manitoba’s silica deposit and low-cost hydroelectricity make it “a really good place for solar manufacturing.” Fath said the plant could create 8,000 jobs when built. He noted he had investors with “deep pockets” ready to support the project, but “they won’t wait forever” for regulatory approval.
• February — Deal made Sio Silica and RCT Solutions signed an agreement to partner on the development of a solar panel manufacturing plant, which would exclusively use sand from Sio Silica’s mine.
• Feb. 27–March 15 — The Clean Environment Commission hearings Hearings took place over 12 days in Steinbach, Anola and Beausejour. The panel heard testimony from more than 70 people, including experts, representatives for Sio Silica and members of the public. The panel also received nearly 300 written submissions. The hearings focused on technical aspects of the project, including its potential impacts on the integrity of the aquifer and risks to water quality.

• March 8 — Council overruled The Municipal Board decided in favour of Richard + Wintrup and Sio Silica, ordering Springfield’s municipal council to amend its zoning bylaws and enter into a development agreement with the company.
• May 8 — New sponsorship deal Sio Silica announced it would sponsor the upcoming Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp.
• June 13–19 — Debate takes chaotic turn Springfield council held several off-the-record meetings to debate the development agreement. Residents protested, arguing the municipality should have followed the normal procedure of public hearings and council debate. At one meeting, the mayor called RCMP to the community hall; in the next, more than 100 residents were locked out of the building. Councillors Andy Kuczynski and Mark Miller voted against the proposed development agreement, resulting in a tie. The agreement was referred back to the municipal board.

• June 20 — More economic muscle on board Michael Pyle, CEO of the Exchange Income Corporation and then-chair of the Winnipeg Football Club, the Manitoba First Fund and the Business Council of Manitoba, was appointed to Sio Silica’s board of directors. 
• June 23 — The Clean Environment Commission releases its final report The commission’s report showed concern the novel mining practice of airlifting sand from the aquifer could pose a risk to the region’s groundwater. The report made eight recommendations to the province aimed at gaining a better scientific understanding of the mine’s risks and strengthening project oversight before a licence is issued.Kevin Klein, Progressive Conservative environment minister at the time, presented the report to the public, pledging his office would review the proposal in light of the recommendations, adding “the process will take as long as the process needs to take.”
• July 26 — Manitoba makes a deal for solar panel production Manitoba’s mining minister at the time, Jeff Wharton, signed a memorandum of understanding with RCT Solutions, agreeing to support Fath in developing the solar glass manufacturing facility. 
• Aug. 11 — A letter from the company lawyers Springfield councillors Kuczynski and Miller received a letter from lawyers at MLT Aikins on behalf of Sio Silica, stating the company is “considering an action for misfeasance in public office.”“But for Councillors’ Miller and Kuczynski’s deliberate and bad-faith attempt to disrupt the land-use planning process, the development agreement would undoubtedly have been approved months ago,” the letter said.
• Aug. 13–Sept. 18 — Springfield residents vote no to Sio Kuczynski and Miller commissioned a phone-in referendum regarding the proposed mine. The survey received approximately 5,000 responses, with about 95 per cent voting “no.” 
• Sept. 15 — Manitoba environmental approvals branch shares a draft environmental licence with Sio Silica In the months following the environment commission hearing, Sio Silica and the environment department continued working toward licensing the mining proposal. In response to the commission’s recommendations, the draft licence is said to have included a staged approach that would “address any remaining environmental and technical concerns the government may have had with the commercial extraction process, before any commercial extraction actually occurred.”
• Oct. 3 — Election day New Democratic Party Leader Wab Kinew was elected premier, ending seven years of Progressive Conservative governance in the province.The government entered a caretaker period to allow for the changeover.
• Oct. 4–5 — Licensing pressure David Filmon contacted Cliff Cullen, then-Progressive Conservative deputy premier and head of the economic development, investment and trade department under the previous government, to follow up on the status of Sio Silica’s mining licence. Texts showed Filmon and Sio Silica were expecting a licence to be signed in the coming days.

• Oct. 6 — Talks ramp up during the transition Department staff and representatives from both parties held multiple meetings to discuss the project.An ethics commission investigation found some provincial staff claimed the licence had already been signed, while members of the Sio Silica team appeared to expect a licensing decision that day.Department staff discussed options to move forward with the licence during the transition period.

• Oct. 12 — Wharton urges the outgoing environment minister and deputy minister to approve Sio Silica’s Environment Act licence. Both refuse.
• Oct. 13 — Sio Silica reaches out to Peguis First Nation Sio Silica signed a memorandum of understanding with Peguis First Nation to conduct environmental monitoring of its mining. The status of that agreement is currently uncertain.
• Oct. 18 — Premier Wab Kinew and his cabinet are sworn in, marking the end of the caretaker period
• In the following months, several interdepartmental meetings took place to brief ministers on the project and plan next steps in licensing. Departmental staff calendars obtained through freedom of information requests showed at least a dozen such meetings between Oct. 24, 2023 and Feb.16, 2024.
• Nov. 13 — Sio Silica goes public through a merger with Pyrophyte Acquisitions, a shell company headquartered in the Cayman Islands Through the public offering, valued at $780 million, details about the company’s financial position and business deals — including signed agreements to sell sand to two semiconductor manufacturers in China — came to light.
• Nov. 20 — Pitching to the new government Sio Silica representatives presented the mine project to Ian Bushie, then-minister of municipal and northern relations and Indigenous economic development, and Jamie Moses, then-minister of economic development, investment, trade and natural resources

2024

• Jan. 12 — MLA requests an ethics investigation MLA Mike Moyes, a legislative assistant in the Environment department, formally requested Manitoba’s ethics commissioner investigate the former government’s efforts to approve Sio Silica’s environment licence during the caretaker period.

• Feb. 16 — Sio Silica’s extraction licence rejected “We have a responsibility to ensure we are not endangering Manitobans’ drinking water,” then-environment minister Tracy Schmidt said. “This proposal failed to adequately consider long-term impacts including potential aquifer collapse. That’s why we made the decision to not issue a licence for the Vivian sand extraction project.”In a statement, Sio Silica claimed the company was “working with Peguis Special Projects and Consultation to conduct environmental monitoring” and had “entered into discussions with Broken Head Ojibway Nation for the location of advanced manufacturing facilities on their lands.”

• Feb. 16 — Alberta lobbyist approaches the province Hal Danchilla, a conservative lobbyist from Alberta, registered to lobby Wab Kinew and Tracy Schmidt on behalf of Sio Silica.
• May 21 — Sio sponsors mining lobby day The Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association hosted its Lobby Day at the legislature. Sio Silica was a premium sponsor of the event. Each MLA was presented with a “custom-made silica sand vial.”
• May 27 — From councillor to a lobbyist Shandy Walls formally registered as a lobbyist for Sio Silica. According to the lobbying registry, she had been lobbying on behalf of the company since May 2021, though no details of her lobbying were recorded. Walls is founder of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce, where Sio Silica is a member, and served on council from 2014 to 2018.
• June — Silicon makes the critical mineral list Canada released an updated critical mineral list with three new minerals, one of which is silicon metal, a potential application of silica sand. According to emails obtained through a freedom of information request, the Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association had requested the federal government add silica sand to the list.
• June 29 — East St. Paul Mayor Carla Devlin is appointed vice-president of Sio Silica.
• July 21 — Sio approaches Brokenhead Sio Silica held a “major project meeting” with the newly elected chief and council.
• November–December — Company looks for First Nations’ support Sio Silica held consultations with several First Nations, focusing in particular on Brokenhead. At a series of roundtable sessions in November, members of the First Nation were presented an equity-sharing opportunity that would be valued at approximately $10 million per year.Sio Silica also held meetings with other Treaty One Nations, a council made up of leadership from seven southern Manitoba First Nations, including Brokenhead, Peguis, Roseau River Anishinabe and Long Plain First Nations.

2025

• Feb. 3 — Devlin is appointed president of Sio Silica
• March — Sio seizes ‘Elbows Up’ moment In the lead up to Canada’s federal election on March 9, sovereignty and economic security became dominant themes.Sio Silica, in the meantime, continued to meet with local officials, including Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, the mayors of Rockwood municipality and Steinbach and with Arctic Gateway Group, the consortium that owns the Port of Churchill. The company discussed the possibility of shipping sand through the port. 
• May 7 — Sio Silica goes stateside Sio Silica registered as a lobbyist in North Dakota. In a November interview, Devlin said the company is considering building a beneficiation facility stateside.
• May 13–14 — National security a new market Sio Silica CEO Feisal Somji spoke at the Critical Minerals Institute Summit IV in Toronto. His talk was titled “The Important Role of Silica in North American National Security and How Canada Can Take a Leading Role.”
• May 21 — Premier, MLAs found guilty of ethics law breach Then-ethics commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor released a 100-page report recommending fines totalling $40,000 for former premier Heather Stefanson and MLAs Cliff Cullen and Jeff Wharton, finding they acted improperly in attempting to secure a licence for Sio Silica during the caretaker period.

• May 28 — A new marketing campaign Sio launched a new marketing campaign — including radio advertisements, billboards and newspaper advertising — with the slogan “15 billion tonnes of opportunity. Stay in Manitoba. Build the Future.”
• Aug. 1–8 — Brokenhead votes ‘no’ Brokenhead, thought to be the “closest First Nation” to the project, held a referendum to decide whether to enter a revenue-sharing deal with Sio Silica. The community rejected Sio’s proposal by a vote of 181-129.
• Aug. 25 — Meetings in North Dakota Carla Devlin met with North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, who serves on the senate environment and public works committee, as well as the armed services committee.
• Aug. 28 — Reinforcing national security narrative Somji spoke as a part of a panel from the Critical Minerals Institute Masterclass series titled: “Silicon’s Strategic Trajectory — From High-Purity Silica to Semiconductors & National Security.”
• Oct. 7 — Fines issued The Manitoba government voted to impose fines on Heather Stefanson ($18,000), Cliff Cullen ($12,000) and Jeff Wharton ($10,000), as per the recommendations in the ethics commissioner’s report. Fines were fully paid by Nov. 4.
• Oct. 28 — A new licence application Sio Silica filed a second Environment Act licence application for its mining process. It was originally filed Aug. 18, but only made publicly available in late October. The revised project proposed reductions in the number of wells drilled, the quantity of sand extracted each year and overall footprint of the mine, starting with 25 wells and 100,000 tonnes removed across about 0.65 square kilometres in the first year.
• Oct. 31 — Long Plain First Nation enters scene Sio Silica signed a memorandum of understanding with Long Plain First Nation to conduct an environmental review of the project.The review is not an endorsement of the project, Chief David Meeches told the CBC, adding “if it is such that it is negative, we will walk away.”
• Nov. 24 — New-look SiMBA project unveiled Sio Silica hosted an open house in Winnipeg for its revised project application.
• Dec. 1 — Licence application in provincial hands The public comment period for the new environment licence application closed.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Dec. 12, 2025 at 4:50 p.m. CT: This article originally stated consulting lobbyist Jeremy Sawatzy met with government officials on behalf of Sio Silica. While he did register to arrange meetings with those officials on behalf of the company, no meetings ultimately took place. It was also updated to correct a line describing Aquatic Life as a startup company.

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