Atlas Salt is poised to make significant contributions to the North American salt market while upholding its values of environmental stewardship and community engagement.
Advancing Through Better Use of Information
Atlas Salt’s Great Atlantic deposit, strategically located next to a deep-water port, is expected to become North America’s first new salt mine in nearly three decades. It will be a unique and long-life electric-based operation accessed through inclined ramps versus vertical shafts that will have negligible GHG emissions.
The Challenge:
Atlas Salt’s Great Atlantic deposit, strategically located next to a deep-water port, is expected to become North America’s first new salt mine in nearly three decades. It will be a unique and long-life electric-based operation accessed through inclined ramps versus vertical shafts that will have negligible GHG emissions.
Environmental Regulations: Stringent environmental regulations and the need for extensive environmental impact assessments (EIA) can delay or halt projects.
Permitting Process: Obtaining the necessary permits is often a lengthy and complex process involving multiple federal, state, and municipal levels of government.
Indigenous Rights: Many proposed mining areas are on or near Indigenous lands, necessitating negotiations and agreements with Indigenous communities.
Infrastructure Requirements: Remote locations often lack the necessary infrastructure, such as roads, power, and water supply, requiring significant investment.
Social License to Operate: Gaining and maintaining community support is crucial, as public opposition can lead to project delays or cancellations.
Technical Challenges: Geological complexities and the need for advanced technology and expertise to extract resources efficiently and safely can pose significant technical challenges.
The Solution:
Addressing these requires the collection, management, distribution, and communication of vast amounts of information, which is a challenge for many companies, no matter their size. Ensuring this valuable information is properly maintained and utilized through the EIA process and beyond is critical, as is the use of newer technologies to better improve access and understanding of the project so it can successfully overcome each challenge as efficiently as possible.
ICI deployed its RIVAS solution to address these project requirements including implementation and professional support services to help achieve these goals.
Components include:
- ReportViz for the creation and display of the report and all referenced data.
- Engagement Manager for the collection, management, query, and display of all information related to public engagements.
- Document Manager for the creation of a document management system to support the easy upload and retrieval of all previously created documents and data associated with the project that would be required by staff to create the registration document.
ReportViz consolidates geoscience data in the same view with the location of documents and photos from SharePoint Online. Clicking on any element lets the user drill into supporting information.
Microsoft Teams was used to create a collaboration environment for the project as well as the SharePoint Online site, which houses most content.
Microsoft SQL Server was also used to manage large and complex datasets that require advanced query options, such as multi-year commercial fishing records, crownland titles and mineral claims.
The client was provided access to the system to improve transparency throughout the process and facilitate discussions throughout the process of describing such a complex project and what is required by the EA framework.
Following four months of teamwork, Atlas Salt submitted its project registration which was released in 52 days with conditions from the EA process. The project is now moving on to engineering and permitting phases. ICI’s RIVAS continues to support the project as it is designed to adapt and scale to evolving needs as the project progresses.
ICI Innovations
Better information flow so customers achieve goals faster
Its ReportViz application is part of the larger RIVAS Project Information Management System (PIMS). It provides access to sophisticated data and reports so project information can be managed and communicated more effectively.
ReportViz is a complete digital EIA and interactive data visualization solution that is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365’s SharePoint Online platform. ICI Innovations has a solid reputation for providing easy to use, yet powerful solutions that support various natural resource-based industries, including energy.
“I am not sure how I ever managed to get through such projects before without ICI’s PIMS solution, as it really allowed the team to quickly identify issues, define the right approach and create the necessary content, including figures. It really changes how we interact with clients, partners, regulators, and the public so that we can respond quickly with the right information and ultimately produce a high-quality result”.
“We are grateful for the efficient assessment of the Project by the Newfoundland and Labrador regulators, which was made possible as a direct result of our work with ICI”