CREATION OF A TUNNEL SYSTEM AT THE DUNDAS QUARRY

The Dundas South Quarry Extension is the newest licensed property of the Dundas WGTA site, which will supplement and extend our existing reserves in the North and South quarries. This extension yielded a unique challenge of access, as it was south of a city roadway, with another road running north-south through the property, a high pressure pipeline running east-west, and a main conveyor belt constraining the property on the East side.

The objective was to create a tunnel system for large 100-ton haul trucks and other mining equipment beneath Concession 4 road, providing access between the new extension and the existing crushing and conveying systems in the North Quarry.

Ensuring the seamless continuity of our operations while the project was underway was the challenge. In collaboration with the Mining and geology group, the site operations did an incredible job in unlocking previously constrained reserves, by properly identifying all critical variables, potential execution scenarios and challenges, and building project and operational contingency plans that ensured a successful implementation.

The original project design called for the tunnel length to be determined based on the relocation status of a pipeline that bisects the new quarry extension. Delays and unknowns in this relocation created the need for a contingency plan to keep the plant running while waiting on the relocation. By redesigning the tunnel to a shorter length and opening it into a small “box cut” between the pipeline and the property limit, an additional 2.1M tonnes of critical reserves are now accessible. This gave the site time for the pipeline relocation to take place in early 2023, with full production mining possible afterwards.

The project was successful due to the collaboration between Land, Manufacturing, Procurement and Environmental teams, along with the Site management. The project started in 2018 with permitting and applications. Construction took approximately one year, beginning December 2021, and wrapped up at the beginning of December 2022.

"Our Dundas quarry is our flagship aggregates operation in Eastern Canada. For over a century, the site has been a major economic driver in the west GTA, contributing to the building of our communities by supplying the materials used to build key infrastructure projects like the QEW and 407 Highways, recognized GTA landmarks as the Rogers Center, Hurontario LRT, Marylyn Monroe Towers, and the Toronto Waterfront Rehabilitation project, in addition to countless schools and hospitals."

Peter Sanguineti, VP - Aggregates, ECAN

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