A month long public consultation process has begun in Likely and surrounding areas on the restart of the Mt Polley mine after Imperials Metals submitted a formal application to reopen late last month.
Many in the community of Likely are looking forward to going back to work, but at a public forum in Likely last week Rod Marining of the BC Environmental Network voiced concern saying it was “insane” to be reopening the mine when there is still two investigations into the breach underway.
“These are heavy metals, they bio accumulate. You won’t see the stuff today, tomorrow or a year from now.” Marining continued claiming that they would be finding metals in the ecosystem 20-30 years from now.
But Imperial Metals VP of Corporate Affairs Steve Roberston says those trace amounts of heavy metals can be found anywhere on earth.
“It’s the concentration that those metals come in, and the form that those metals are in.” Robertson said “That’s where we are actually quite lucky with the chemistry of what we have at Mount Polley; those metals don’t tend to be available to the food chain and won’t be taken up by the wildlife and bio-accumulate.”
Roberston added that all the tests done so far have been very encouraging.
“So far we have not identified any real risk to the environment, there’s no dead fish, there’s no sick fish with a very healthy marine environment and tests are ongoing. But all the results we have had so far indicate that there will be very little risk to the environment.”
The original tailings pond facility will not be used if the mine is restarted as proposed.
Further public meetings on the reopening of the mine will be taking place all month, including April 22nd in Williams Lake.
The cleanup for last summer’s tailings pond breach is estimated at almost 68 million dollars.
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