The Mt Polley mine when in production. It warrants public alarm, but the failure of the Mount Polley mine’s tailings pond does not warrant widespread
The Mt Polley mine when in production.
It warrants public alarm, but the failure of the Mount Polley mine’s tailings pond does not warrant widespread hysteria. The latter will lead down the same dead-end streets that most resource-extraction-versus-environmental-utopia debates in B.C. do. There are no solutions on those roads most travelled – only more polarized finger pointing, of which the province already has a surplus.
The B.C. Day breach of the tailings pond, which released an estimated 10 million cubic metres of mine effluent into Polley and Quesnel lakes, hit area residents hard and continues to pose a significant risk to the local environment. The Cariboo Regional District’s subsequent state of local emergency declaration and water ban advisory not to drink, bathe or feed livestock drawn from area waterways underscores that.
Serious public relations damage has likewise been inflicted not only mine owner Imperial Metals Corp. but also on other major miners in the province with aspirations to invest in new projects or expand development of existing mines.
Critics have spared little venom in subsequent attacks on the company. Much of that criticism is warranted on numerous industry and government fronts.
As Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch told a town hall meeting in Likely following the tailings pond failure, the accident should not have happened. But likening it to the Exxon Valdez disaster as Union of BC Indian Chiefs president Stewart Phillip has done, or advocating against development of any mining projects in “ecologically sensitive areas” as did the Sierra Club BC’s forest and climate campaigner Jens Wieting, is to reduce the debate to the aforementioned level of us versus them.
The engineering mistakes and operational procedures that led to the Mount Polley mine mess need to be fully examined and resolved to prevent its reoccurrence anywhere in the province. More productive still, Mount Polley should kick-start initiatives to improve tailings pond technology or, better still, legislate the use of systems such as dry stacking that would eliminate them altogether.
Editor’s Note: This editorial comment appeared in a recent issue of Business in Vancouver. It reflects the seriousness of the situation while at the same time urging a reasonable and balanced approach to mitigating and preventing future failures.
