DONKIN, N.S. — The stop-work order on a section of Donkin Mine has been lifted.
Paul McEachern, spokesperson for the mine, said the order was lifted Friday by the Department of Labour and Advanced Education.
“The rockfall had been cleaned up, there has been remediation work done on the roof and additional supports in the area.”
McEachern said production never ceased in the other area of the mine at any time. Mining was only halted in the area impacted by the rockfall.
Production resumed in the impacted area with the 7 a.m. shift Monday, he added.
On Feb. 3 employees arriving to work in the Kameron Collieries-owned mine, discovered a rockfall had occurred sometime over the weekend in an intersection of a production area, about 70 feet from where they were last mining. There wasn’t any production or mining taking place during that weekend.
In a story in the Cape Breton Post on Feb. 5, Scott Nauss, the senior director of inspections and compliance with the labour department, said a stop-work order was issued for that section of the mine. Nauss said the labour department was conducting an inspection to ensure the mine was in compliance with the ground control plan.
The mine was issued two followup orders — to clean up the rockfall and to do an assessment to determine what happened and implement some corrective measures to prevent a reoccurrence.
The department of labour was contacted but did not respond by deadline.
Since the coal mine opened in 2017, there have been 11 rockfalls but some occurred in travel ways that are no longer being used and some were in abandoned portions of the mine.
The mine was purchased by the Cline Group in 2014 and opened in February 2017. In February 2018, the mine celebrated its first coal production.
There are currently 150 people employed at the coal mine.
