Ministerial bafflegab doesn’t lessen the impact of the Mount Polley tailings spill

Ministerial bafflegab doesn’t lessen the impact of the Mount Polley tailings spill

“Perceptions” by Gerry Warner

“Tailing dams at operating mines have not ever failed in British Columbia. This is the first time. It is hard to plan for something that never happened,” said Mines Minister Bill Bennett in a front page Cranbrook Townsman story Aug. 12.

Huh!

Assuming the quote is correct, and a former Kimberley resident said he heard Bennett say the same thing to the Vancouver media last week, Kootenay Bill must be having hallucinations over the mammoth Mt. Polley spill or he’s completely ignorant of the mining history in B.C.

Don’t believe me? Punch tailing dam breaches into Goggle and see for yourself.

The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) lists six pages of mine tailing dam breaches around the world – close to 200 in all – with six of the breaches occurring in BC at Invermere, Granisle, Pinchi Lake (two) and Kimberley. At the time, the only non- operating mine was the  Mineral King Mine west of Invermere, but it leaked anyway.

But yes, you read correctly one of the breaches occurred March 4, 1948 at the Sullivan Mine tailings pond above Marysville which released more than a million cubic metres of chemical-laced tailings when a dam wall broke during early spring run-off and washed out the railway tracks and the power line connecting the mine to the mill and almost drowned three security guards who barely escaped the ocean of sludge, according to a 1948 story in the Cranbrook Courier. 

More spills, including the ones in BC, are listed in The Chronology of Major Dam Failures which says “the challenges associated with tailings storage are ever increasing.” Despite this, ever since the Mt. Polley mine discharged 14.5 million cubic metres of mine processing water and sand into Quesnel Lake, reports have been circulating that inspections of the tailings pond fell off dramatically after Liberal government cutbacks began in 2001 and repeated Environment Ministry warnings about environmental issues and high tailing levels behind the dam were ignored by Imperial Metals Corp., the owners of the mine.

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun Tuesday, Bennett said the Mt. Polley spill can no longer be seen from the air. That’s comforting, I suppose.

Out of sight; out of mind. Bennett also insisted the Mt. Polley breach wasn’t an environmental disaster and compared it to the “thousands” of avalanches that occur in BC every winter. Really! Naturally occurring avalanches of snow being compared to a tailings pond breach spilling toxic chemicals like arsenic and poisonous metals like mercury, cadmium and lead. Now that’s a stretch!

But maybe this is what to expect from a mines minister that doesn’t know the history of tailing pond breaches in the province even when they occur in the riding next to his. Bennett accuses his critics of “taking cheap political advantage” in the aftermath of the Mt. Polley spill. That’s pretty rich coming from a mines minister brazenly trying to downplay the seriousness of the biggest tailings pond spill in the province in recent years. At 530 metres (1,739 ft.), Quesnel Lake is the deepest in BC and one of the most pristine. Who in their right mind thinks the purity of this salmon-spawning lake is going to be helped by having 14.5 million cubic metres of mine sludge dumped into it?

But what’s really sad here is that Bennett’s bluster may be damaging the very industry he so zealously supports. According to the Mining Association of BC, mining contributed $8.9 billion to the BC economy in 2010, provided more than 45,000 direct and indirect jobs and paid $938.6 million in taxes and royalties to all levels of government. I grew up a Cominco brat myself and owe my university education to Cominco. And I can tell you that Trail, BC, where I grew up, is a green and beautiful town today thanks to the millions, if not, billions spent by Teck-Cominco to clean the smelter up from the bad old days.

An industry as advanced as this needs a mines minister that can deal forthrightly with the public and better knows his own portfolio.

 Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and Cranbrook City Councillor, who in his younger days, worked in a few mines himself. His opinions are his own.