Specifying that anyone interested in developing or opening a new mine would have to submit a closure plan before production could begin, Bill 71 received Royal Assent in December 1989. Additional provisions related to claim staking, fees, and assessment requirements are contained in regulations accompanying Bill 71. Public safety problems associated with surface cave-ins, mine tailing sites, open mine shafts and toxic wastes, which the legislation is intended to address, have created a demand for more information by government, the mining and research communities, and the general public. In May 1988, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Ministry of the Environment began funding a series of Environmental Youth Corps projects at Laurentian University mandated to develop a specialized Mining Environment Database on Abandoned Mines and Land Reclamation. The database provides references and abstracts to over 20,000 journal articles, books, and government reports dealing with abandoned mines, acid mine drainage and land reclamation.
Subject coverage focuses on hard rock mining topics and is international in scope.
The researcher must then obtain the articles or books from a local library, or from an unknown source through interlibrary loan. This process can take weeks or months. In contrast, the Mining Environment Database includes citations reflecting a growing Laurentian University Library collection of books, reports, conference proceedings and journal articles, intended to save valuable research time in locating and obtaining information. Except for long-distance charges, database searching is free. MacOS and Unix are provided.