New Gold released the Water Management Strategy Statement in June 2023, defining our commitment to water stewardship across the company.
At the New Afton Mine, water remains a key strategic focus, and the site continued to prioritize water management and stewardship activities in 2024. Highlights this year included collaboratively advancing groundwater projects through the Groundwater Taskforce with the Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwepemc Nation, improving the accuracy of the water balance model and establishing monthly reporting and validation, and removal of the New Afton Tailings Storage Facility Pond using mechanical evaporators.
“Our approach to water management reflects the importance of water to our operations and the communities in which we operate,” said Emily O’Hara, Manager of Water Strategy and Stewardship. “We work to reduce water-related risks, identify opportunities, and continue to build trust through transparent reporting.”
In 2023, New Afton achieved a AAA rating for the Towards Sustainable Mining Water Stewardship Protocol. This is the highest level of assessment and demonstrates New Afton’s commitment towards water and the dedicated focus it requires. As part of this work and to improve the standard of our external water reporting, EMM Consulting completed an external verification of water data reported in New Gold’s 2023 Environment, Social and Governance Reports. This was the second year New Gold obtained external verification, and the findings again identified no fatal flaws with reporting. Several recommendations from the 2022 review were addressed before completing the 2023 reports. The outstanding recommendations and recommendations from the 2023 verification were:
- Review mass balance of flows to determine if losses from the process are material to the calibration;
- Update the water balance model report after the next calibration period to improve documentation of assumptions; and
- Review water balance model outputs with pumped data when available and record and justify variances if required.
New Gold welcomes feedback on our external reporting and will work to incorporate the recommendations in the 2024 reporting. Any further feedback or questions on the 2023 ESG Reports can be directed to sustainability@newgold.com.
