Reply #38: The damage to Sudbury's landscape happened several generations ago

[Canuckistanian]

It was the result of unregulated small mining operations that burned individual kilns for extracting nickel and copper.

Here's an explanation:

As early as 1856, surveyors detected the presence of copper and nickel in the Sudbury area. In 1885, a surveyor discovered the richest deposits of nickel ore in the world. One year later, mining of copper and nickel began in earnest and continues to this day . In these early days, the sulfur was removed from the copper-nickel ore in an "open roast yard", a mound of ore and wood that was kept burning for months before being loaded into a furnace. This process not only stripped the surrounding land of its timber for use as fuel wood, but also increased the frequency of fires. These roast yards, now long abandoned, are believed to have contributed significantly to the barren landscape that has characterized the Sudbury area because of their highly toxic soils. They have also been a source of native vegetation that has acquired variation in nickel and copper tolerance (Hogan et al. 1977).

http://horticulture.coafes.umn.edu/vd/h5015/96papers/msmith.htm

It certainly isn't like that today. The modern smelters at Inco and Falconbridge are much better now, comparable to any modern smelting operation in terms of pollution.