Page 78 Contd on pg 78 By Kevin V incent Industry watchers contractors sup pliers municipal politicians and residents of at least four northern Ontario cities are regularly checking their smartphones for news alerts as Noront Resources inches closer to a decision on its preferred loca tion for a ferrochrome smelter expected any day Noront has been wined and dined by most major northern Ontario cities but the V egas odds are down to Sudbury and T immins with Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay as longshots The Nickel City Sudbury and The City W ith a Heart of Gold T immins are the oddson favourites due lar gely to more than a century of loca l mining history When this publication went to print Noront had not announced its deci sion The outcome of the June 7 pro vincial electio n is also expected to play a role The smelter is expected to process ore from Noront s Ring of Fire chromite deposit considered one of the lar gest discoveries of its kind in the past 50 years The Ring of Fire is still several layers of government approvals from production Sudbury municipal ofcials and poli ticians have identifed the community of Coniston as their preferred site while T immin s is holding out the Glencore Kidd Operations smelter and concentrator complex The T im mins smelter would require a retroft Local opposition to the Sudbury op tion began shortly after mayor Brian Biggar and other city ofcials few to Finla nd earlier this year to tour a ferrochrome facility there A group calling itself Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury or ganized a number of pub lic meetings to allow citizens opposed to the Coniston option to voice their concerns on the potential health and environmental impacts In T immins no such opposition has taken place In T immins local politicians and resi dents are bracing for the imminent 2022 shut down of the historic Glen coreowned Kidd Creek base metals mine Former owner Xstrata Copper Canada announced in late 2009 that was closing the company s T im mins smelter and shifting that role to their facilities in Quebec The move saw the loss of several hundred jobs however many of the laid of work ers who didn t retire were able to fnd work in other area mines Both T immins and Sudbury locations are considered brownfeld sites a designation that essentially says the locations have already gone through extensive and historical environmen tal oversight a fact that would shorten or potentially eliminate the need for new and costly environmental assess ments The tug of war meanwhile between northwestern and northeastern On tario to land the multibillion dollar longterm windfall from the Ring of Fire has playe d out for years The scandalplagued W ynne and Mc Guinty Liberal governments included