Second silica sand mine proposed for southern Manitoba

A second company has its sights on mining silica sand in southern Manitoba — this time, near La Salle.

Consultants for Silex Resource Corp. plan to hold an open house about the proposed project in the Rural Municipality of Macdonald on Wednesday.

Donovan Toews, managing partner of Landmark Planning and Design, which is the consultant on the Silex project, said they want to inform residents at this early stage.

“They haven’t done anything except the research to know that this is a very good location to look for silica,” Toews said.

“It’s there, it’s just a matter of taking samples at this stage and testing the quality. That’s the objective, and that’s as far as we are going for now. Let’s get the samples and see how good it is.”

Highly pure silica has many uses, including in the manufacture of semiconductors for electronics, solar panels, batteries and wind turbines.

Toews said the company started in Alberta, but if the project gets off the ground, it will move its offices to Manitoba.

The open house will allow residents to view proposed drilling test sites. It has 13 claims of between 40 to 60 acres in size, but its initial testing will be in a large area south of La Salle and Landmark.

“It’s exciting,” Toews said. “Manitoba does have a resource almost no other place has… it is needed for just about everything, from cellphones to everything else, and we get it from places like Argentina and China. And we have it right here.”

The other proposed sand mine, spearheaded by Sio Silica in the RM of Springfield, east of Winnipeg, was shot down by the provincial government after community opposition. People feared the sand mine would pollute the aquifer that supplies their well water.

Toews said unlike that proposal, the aquifer under Silex’s proposed project isn’t used by residents.

“This is a very saline aquifer,” he said. “It’s not good for people and animals. It will kill plants.”

He said the geology and hydro-geology of the area show the silica is of a high quality.

Another difference, he said, is that Silex plans to drill far fewer bore holes, and they will be horizontal, not vertical.

In the RM of Springfield, Sio Silica, which is trying to revive its bid for a sand mine near Vivian, 50 kilometres east of Winnipeg, plans to hold an open house today. The company filed a revised application to the province’s Clean Environment Commission last month that involves drilling fewer wells in a smaller area.

The original proposal became mired in controversy after the NDP won the 2023 election. It became known the Tory government had pushed to have it approved in the period after losing the election and before the NDP was sworn in as government.

An investigation by the province’s ethics commissioner resulted in fines being issued to former premier Heather Stefanson and two of her former cabinet ministers for breaching conflict of interest laws. The commissioner did not find evidence of wrongdoing by the company.

RM of Springfield Coun. Mark Miller — who, with fellow councillor Andy Kuczynski, issued a statement recently rejecting Sio Silica’s second mining application — said RM of Macdonald residents should be prepared to ask Silex many questions at the open house.

“I’m not an anti-silica sand person, but you need to know who this company is and what the safeguards are,” Miller said.

“I would also want to know what differentiates them from the Sio Silica project. I want to encourage the residents in the RM of Macdonald to educate themselves and find out about it… anyone with a well there should be aware of what the risks are.”

RM of Macdonald Reeve Brian Erb said people in his municipality already know about the quality of the water beneath their land.

“All of our potable water is surface from the Assiniboine and the La Salle Rivers,” Erb said. “There really is no potable aquifer below us. Our entire municipality is all piped water from the treatment plant.”

Erb said he doesn’t know details about Silex’s proposal, but he encourages residents to attend the open house to find out more and looks forward to a subsequent presentation from the company to council.

A spokesperson for the provincial government said it has no comment on Silex’s plan because the company has not approached the government about it.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca