ManitobaA Manitoba First Nation has agreed to an environmental assessment of a proposed silica sand mining project, which the First Nation’s chief suggests won’t move beyond a review if it uncovers any serious risks to the land or drinking water.Alberta sand mining company recently refiled licence application following rejection in 2024Bryce Hoye · CBC News · Posted: Oct 31, 2025 3:12 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesSio Silica recently filed a new application to extract silica sand from below the surface of southeastern Manitoba. On Friday, Long Plain First Nation announced it would partner with the Alberta-based sand mining company specifically on an environmental assessment. (Bartley Kives/CBC)A Manitoba First Nation has agreed to an environmental assessment of a proposed silica sand mining project, which the First Nation’s chief suggests won’t move beyond a review if it uncovers any serious risks to the land or drinking water.Long Plain First Nation signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta-based Sio Silica to lead an environmental review and consultation over a possible series of sand wells that would be drilled in southeastern Manitoba, according to Chief David Meeches.”We’re simply at this point looking at an environmental review process. We’ve already been engaging with those that potentially will do our review,” Meeches said in a Friday interview.”I am not looking beyond that. I am looking at the environmental review and … if it is such that it is negative, we will walk away.”The memorandum isn’t meant as an endorsement of the project proposal, according to a news release from Long Plain Friday.Meeches said Long Plain is in talks with Ogema Services about doing the environmental assessment. The Indigenous-owned consulting firm was founded by former Long Plain chief Dennis Meeches.News of the MOU comes days after Manitoba Environment and Climate Change began inviting comments on a renewed application by Sio Silica, whose previous proposal was rejected last year by the NDP government.Sio’s original plan proposed to bore 7,200 wells east and southeast of Winnipeg over 25 years and pipe out highly sought-after silica sand, used in solar panel production, hydraulic fracking for natural gas, glass manufacturing, construction and more.Drinking water concernsThe plan was met with strong community opposition over environmental concerns and fears the wells could leech into and contaminate drinking water.Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission backed up some of those concerns. In a 2023 report, the arm’s-length agency of the provincial government said it didn’t have confidence risks to an “essential source of drinking water” were sufficiently addressed by Sio Silica in its original proposal.”The mining approach proposed by Sio Silica does have merit if the risks posed to the quality of water in the affected aquifers can be better defined and the management of those risks can be adequately addressed,” reads a section of the commission’s report.However, the NDP government turfed Sio Silica’s proposal in 2024 days after approving a different silica project near Lake Winnipeg. Then-environment minister Tracy Schmidt, now the education minister, said the risks were “simply too great.”The proposal also became a source of political controversy, with Manitoba’s ethics commissioner finding the outgoing Progressive Conservatives tried to force through a deal with Sio Silica after the party lost the 2023 provincial election, but before the New Democrats took power.He recommended fines for former premier Heather Stefanson, former deputy premier Cliff Cullen, and current Tory MLA Jeff Wharton, which the PCs and NDP voted unanimously in favour of earlier this month. New plan calls for fewer wellsThis week, Sio Silica’s revised request for an environmental licence laid out a plan to drill fewer wells, take out less sand and purify water it removes before injecting it back underground. All of that will be done in a graduated way over the first five years to more adequately account for risks, according to the new proposal.”True progress happens when environmental protection and economic opportunity move hand in hand,” Sio Silica president Carla Devlin said in an emailed statement Friday.Sio Silica is working with Long Plain “to ensure that land and water stewardship are at the heart of this review,” she said, and “building a foundation of trust, accountability and shared benefit for future generations.”The Long Plain environmental assessment MOU comes nearly three months after Brokenhead Ojibway Nation voted against partnering with Sio Silica. The company suggested this summer Brokenhead stood to receive as much as $20 million annually from the deal if the province provided Sio Silica with an environmental licence.Long Plain Chief Meeches stressed the community is only agreeing to an environmental review at this point, and is not committing to moving forward with drilling — whether or not the province grants a licence or if the assessment shows risks can be mitigated.He also acknowledged Long Plain had no obligation to enter into the environmental review agreement with Sio Silica. Long Plain’s leadership has been engaged in talks with the provincial and federal governments over recent initiatives to spur the Canadian economy, amid deteriorated trade opportunities and tariffs from the U.S., Meeches said.”So we look at that capitalizing, and each province is doing that, and all I have to say about that is, ‘Why not Long Plain?'”Meeches said it’s important Long Plain shows an openness to those Canada-first initiatives. “These initiatives in general benefit everybody,” he said. “It would be irresponsible not to look at different options and create opportunity for your community, because that’s what it’s all about.”With files from Bartley Kives
Long Plain First Nation agrees to lead Sio Silica sand mine environmental review
