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Nine Months After Polley Breach, Alaskans Seek Compensation Guarantee from BC
Nine Months After Polley Breach, Alaskans Seek Compensation Guarantee from BC
Proposed northern BC mines ‘source of great angst in Juneau.’
Earlier this month, Heather Hardcastle, a commercial fisherwoman from Juneau, Alaska met in Williams Lake, B.C. with members of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation. They shared a meal of wild Alaskan salmon that Hardcastle brought as a symbolic gesture: This fish was a reminder of all there was to lose.
After lunch, Hardcastle and her team of Alaska visitors boarded a helicopter and flew 25 minutes away to the site of the Mount Polley accident, the scene of a massive breach last August of its mine waste dam near the town of Likely, B.C.
The breach released millions of cubic metres of contaminated water into Quesnel Lake, which feeds into the Fraser River.
Nine months later, Jacinda Mack, a Xatsull woman from the Soda Creek reserve and one of many residents living near the path of the spill, invited the Alaskans to Williams Lake to see firsthand the main effect of that accident.
On the Fraser River, contamination from the mine breachthreatened the run of Sockeye salmon that spawns in Quesnel Lake.
“We saw where [Mack] was raised, and where they used to fish on the Fraser where people fished for thousands of years, and they’re not fishing there anymore. It’s heartbreaking,” Hardcastle said. “It’s a stunning and gorgeous area but it was just so sad. It feels selfish to be thinking about us and our water, but it lit a fire under me. We have to do something.”
It was an eye-opening sight to Hardcastle, who lives and works in southeast Alaska, downstream from a number of open-pit mines located in northwest B.C., with more under construction and opening soon.
Hardcastle grew up in the 1970s, during which time her parents fought the B.C. Tulsequah Chief mine, located 65 kilometres north of Juneau, Alaska, which leaked acid mine drainage in 1957 and still hasn’t been cleaned up. The polluted Tulsequah River empties into the salmon-rich Taku River.
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Canadian Miners on the Road to Accountability
Canadian Miners on the Road to Accountability
There was a time not that long ago when Canadian mining companies could feasibly commit all sorts of human rights abuses abroad, trampling the rights of local impoverished communities and overstepping their remit as a foreign firm extracting natural resources.
Numerous allegations against these mining firms have cropped up all over the world, but there are a few cases which have continually drawn the attention of activists and law enforcement bodies alike.
Hudbay Minerals previously ran the Fenix ferro-nickel project in Guatemala until September 2011. But locals allege – and have brought forward multiple lawsuits – that Hudbay security guards gang-raped several local indigenous women and shot and killed indigenous leader Adolfo Ich Chaman in 2009 after he tried to calm a protest at the mining site.
Hudbay has refuted these claims for years, but in July 2013, the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that these suits – the three lawsuits in total which have been filed – can be heard in an Ontario court.
Though Hudbay dropped its opposition to having the case heard in Ontario in February 2013, the trial has yet to be held.
Another Canadian miner, Centerra Gold, is accused of dubious activities in Kyrgyzstan, where its main Kumtor gold mine is located. The local population in the Kyrgyz mountains has been against the development of the mine for years, protesting against everything from the sullying of the water from the mine’s tailing ponds to the lack of available jobs for local inhabitants.
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Environmentalists Win Federal Lawsuit Over Colorado Coal Mines
Environmentalists Win Federal Lawsuit Over Colorado Coal Mines
Environmentalists won big May 8 in a lawsuit brought against the federal government over two coal mines near the northern Colorado town of Craig.
The nonprofit environmental group WildEarth Guardians sued the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), a bureau within the U.S.Department of the Interior, over permits granted in 2007 to expand the coal mines, saying OSM failed to seek public input or consider impacts on the environment when it approved expanding the mines. The mines are operated by Colowyo Coal Company and Trapper Mining, Inc.
In his May 8, 2015 ruling, Federal District Judge R. Brooke Jackson agreed with WildEarth Guardians that OSMcited outdated documents from the 1970s in its Finding of No Significant Impact for the mine expansions, and found the agency “did not comply with its most basic NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] duty of providing public notice” of the mining plan revisions.
The judge awarded WildEarth Guardians reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses incurred in bringing the lawsuit, and gave the two mining companies 120 days to “take a hard look at the direct and indirect environmental effects of the Colowyo mining plan revision,” and “provide public notice and an opportunity for public involvement before reaching its decisions.”
If the companies fail to complete these remedial tasks within the assigned 120-day window, they face closure of the mines.
The ruling follows a similar one in U.S. District Court in June of 2014 in which the Court found the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service wrongly approved expansion of the West Elk coal mine in Somerset, Colorado, because the company operating the mine, Arch Coal, failed to consider the social and economic impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from the mining.
Alaskans Ring Alarm Bells Over Potential for More Mount Polley Disasters As B.C. Pushes Forward With New Mines
Alaskans Ring Alarm Bells Over Potential for More Mount Polley Disasters As B.C. Pushes Forward With New Mines
Worried Alaskans who fear lucrative fisheries and tourism industries are at risk from lax B.C. oversight of mine safety are meeting with state officials next week to ask the U.S. State Department to push for more input on mine development along the border of northwest B.C. and southeast Alaska.
“We are calling for an equal seat at the table. We want equal representation on the part of Americans and Alaskans when it comes to how these watersheds are developed,” said Heather Hardcastle, a commercial salmon fisher based in Juneau.
“We take all the risks and the costs and get none of the benefits.”
Hardcastle is a member of a coalition of Alaskan mayors, First Nations, businessmen and fishers who were horrified by the Mount Polley tailings pond collapse last August. Their concerns were exacerbated by last week’s provincial government report that found a weak foundation and design were responsible for the failure that saw an estimated 25 million cubic metres of waste water and toxic sludge flood from the copper and gold mine’s tailings pond into rivers and lakes.
Although the unidentified glacial layer under the dam and design changes that resulted in overly steep slopes on the embankment were pinpointed as the main causes, the report refers to multiple problems, ranging from over-topping to questionable safety margins.
The picture of failure – and the seeming inability of provincial or company inspectors to identify the problems – is raising already elevated apprehensions in Alaska, where the Red Chris Mine began operating Tuesday.
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Mount Polley spill blamed on design of embankment
Independent investigation finds foundation of earthen dam failed because of unstable underlying layers
An independent investigation has determined the breach of the Mount Polley mine tailings dam in B.C. was caused by a failure to detect a weak layer in its foundation, likening the massive embankment to a “loaded gun.”
The report, which was released on Friday morning in Victoria, said the design failed to take into account the complexity of the instability of underlying glacial and pre-glacial layers under the retaining wall.
But the authors, geotechnicians Norbert Morganstern and Steve Vick, did not blame provincial inspectors for not detecting the problem beforehand.
The investigators said the dam was built on a weak layer of glacial deposits that was undetected at the time, making the dam like a ‘loaded gun.”
They said the construction of a steep slope in the embankment as the dam was raised was “like pulling the trigger,” causing the failure last summer.
They also concluded that massive volume of water in the tailings dam did not cause the dam to fail, but it did result in more tailings being released when it did breach.
Just eight days before the dam failed, a plan was approved to raise the dam further, but on the condition that a buttressing wall was put in place and the slope decreased, they said.
The investigators also made several recommendations to improve the safety of tailings dams, including updating the way they are designed, monitored and regulated in B.C.
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We Must Start Digging Our Way Out of Canada’s Mining Dilemma
We Must Start Digging Our Way Out of Canada’s Mining Dilemma
It sometimes seems people in the mining and fossil fuel industries — along with their government promoters — don’t believe in the future. What else could explain the mad rush to extract and use up the Earth’s resources as quickly and wastefully as possible?
Global mining production, including fossil fuels, has almost doubled since 1984, from just over nine-billion tonnes to almost 17-billion in 2012, with the greatest increases over the past 10 years.
It’s partly to meet rising demand from expanding human populations and supply the cycle of consumerism that fuels the global economy through planned obsolescence, marketing unnecessary products and wasteful technologies. And, as the British Geological Survey notes, “It may be uncomfortable to acknowledge, but wars have been the drivers for many of mankind’s technological developments. Such technologies depend on secure supplies of numerous mineral commodities for which demand inevitably escalates in times of war.”
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Canada’s Mining Sector Braces For Challenging Year In 2015
Canada’s Mining Sector Braces For Challenging Year In 2015.
MONTREAL – Canada’s mining sector is bracing for another challenging year in 2015 as slower growth in China is expected to continue to dampen selling prices for many metals.
Iron ore suffered the biggest drop in the past year, losing nearly half its value to reach the lowest price in more than five years. Some expect the price could fall further — perhaps to US$60 per tonne — on increased supply from Australia and Brazil by giants like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, outpaces demand.
Coal, silver, potash, copper and lead prices also weakened in the past year.
Not all metals and minerals suffered. Nickel was the big winner, with prices rising 17 per cent following Indonesia’s ban on exports. Other gainers were uranium, aluminum, zinc and diamonds.
Although mining is in a multi-year global slump, prices are significantly higher than they were a decade ago, said Pierre Gratton, president of the Mining Association of Canada.
“It’s a cyclical industry and we have to weather this,” he said in an interview.
Bloom Lake hit with record environmental fine – Business – CBC News
Bloom Lake hit with record environmental fine – Business – CBC News.
A mining company has plead guilty to 45 charges under the fisheries act and will pay a $7.5-million fine for improperly releasing pollutants into fish-bearing waters.
Bloom Lake General Partner Ltd. has been ordered to pay the fine because the Triangle Tailings Pond dam breach in May 2011 and other environmental accidents over a period of 18 months, Environment Canada said Wednesday.
The iron ore mine is located southwest of Labrador City but is in Quebec. In one instance, more than 14,500 litres of ferric sulfate was dumped into water frequented by fish. “On a number of occasions,” Environment Canada said in a release Wednesday, “the company did not inform the Department of releases, contrary to regulatory requirements and omitted to take samples and conduct analyses as required under the regulations.”
Of the total fine, $6.83 million will be directed to a federal government fund that’s aimed at making sure those who cause environmental damage or harm to wildlife take responsibility for their actions by supporting projects that benefit the environment. That’s the biggest amount that a Canadian company has ever been ordered to contribute to that fund.
The mining operation was supposed to be expanding following a $5-billion deal in which the company changed hands. But earlier this year, the U.S.-based owner, Cliffs Natural Resources, cancelled those plans because of plunging commodity prices.
Blockading Australia’s largest coal mine – Features – Al Jazeera English
Blockading Australia’s largest coal mine – Features – Al Jazeera English.
Maules Creek, Australia – On a balmy Sunday in late November, the renowned Rugby Union Wallabies player David Pocock chained himself to mining equipment where he spent the next 10 hours with a handful of others to protest against the bulldozing of a state forest to make way for what will become Australia’s biggest coal mine.
In a photo posted to his Twitter account, Pocock is seen smiling and wearing a wide-brim hat, while tethered with a farmer to a super-digger near the Maules Creek mine, located in the coal-rich Gunnedah Basin of New South Wales.
Construction of the open mine, which will cost an estimated AUS $670m ($558m), according to Whitehaven Coal, started in January 2014. Since then, blockades and protests have regularly sprung up with activists chaining themselves to mining equipment and creating roadblocks in and around the mine.
They’re angry at the creation of a mine that requires the bulldozing of about 1,500 of the 8,000 hectares of Leard State Forest. It’s a unique and endangered ecosystem that is home to 396 native species of plants and animals, of which 34 threatened species live including the squirrel glider.
The mine was approved in July 2013 by the state government, and the life of the project is expected to span over three decades with an estimated 13 million tonnes of coal produced annually, once production reaches full capacity.
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Few jobs despite booming Mozambique economy – Features – Al Jazeera English
Few jobs despite booming Mozambique economy – Features – Al Jazeera English.
Maputo, Mozambique – Beto Magumane Cossa was orphaned at 14 when his father was killed by a woman with whom he was having an affair.
Alone and with no other family living in Magude, a rural district 155km from the capital Maputo’s shopping malls and luxury hotels, Beto lived off the money his brother sent home from working as a miner in South Africa.
Life was difficult but manageable – the money his brother sent home was enough to keep Beto clothed and fed. If things got tight, the neighbours helped Beto out by giving him food. But a few years after their father’s death, Beto’s brother returned home sick with HIV/AIDS and couldn’t work. Beto tried to find a job to support them both, but no one would take him on.
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Uranium Mine Sludge Discharge Permit Threatens Lake Malawi | Environment News Service
Uranium Mine Sludge Discharge Permit Threatens Lake Malawi | Environment News Service.
KARONGA, Malawi, November 25, 2014 (ENS) – Paladin Africa Ltd, which mines uranium ore in Malawi’s northern district of Karonga, has come under fire from a coalition of Malawian civil society groups and chiefs over its proposal to discharge mining sludge into the Sere and North Rukuru rivers.
The toxic substances that would flow from the tailings pond at the Kayelekera Uranium Mine into Lake Malawi 50 kilometers (30 miles) downstream include waste uranium rock, acids, arsenic and other chemicals used in processing the uranium ore, the coalition fears.
Lake Malawi in eastern Africa is the world’s ninth largest lake, some 580 kilometers (360 miles) long, and 75 kilometers (47 miles) wide at its widest point. It extends into Malawi’s neighbors Tanzania and Mozambique.
The lake provides water for drinking and domestic use to millions of Malawians. Part of the lake is protected as a national park, and it is inhabited by more than 850 cichlid fish species found nowhere else on Earth.
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