Innovation upping safety game underground: Northern gold mines using technology to keep workers safe.

• Date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Kelly, Lindsay

"Safe. Simple. Green. Silent. Invisible."

It's a tagline Goldcorp has adopted for its developing Borden gold project, located near Chapleau, and it's no coincidence that "safe" is the leading word in the statement.

Located in a pristine area on the shores of Borden Lake, the proposed mine is in the early stages of advanced exploration, but already several decisions have been made about the mine in keeping with Goldcorp's efforts to minimize the impact on the environment and its workers.

"We intend to leave next to nothing for a footprint there," said Peter Calnan, Goldcorp's director of operational support and change management, during the 2017 Workplace Safety North mining conference in Sudbury. "You will hardly know there's a mine there as you drive by."

Yet within its depths, the mine will be home to some sophisticated equipment and tools designed to make work safer for the 200 or so employees that will toil underground.

Paramount to its operation is a fleet of battery-operated electric vehicles, including jumbos, 14-tonne load-haul-dump (LHDs), bolters, service carriers, and emulsion loaders. Trucks delivering ore to the surface will initially be diesel-operated--electric technology for...