{"id":56504,"date":"2021-01-25T07:56:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T12:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56504"},"modified":"2021-01-25T07:56:42","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T12:56:42","slug":"babine-lake-mines-leaking-dangerous-contaminants-into-salmon-habitat-say-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56504","title":{"rendered":"Babine Lake Mines Leaking Dangerous Contaminants into Salmon Habitat, Say Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Babine Lake Mines Leaking Dangerous Contaminants into Salmon Habitat, Say Critics<\/a><\/h3>\n

Advocates want greater oversight as a mapping project identifies more than 170 mines putting waterways at risk.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\"BellMineEffluent.jpg\"
Effluent from the Bell Mine, closed in 1992, remains in ponds near the shore of Babine Lake, a critical salmon habitat.\u00a0Photo from SkeenaWild Conservation Trust.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Two closed mines on islands in Babine Lake are leaking dangerous levels of copper that could be damaging the Skeena watershed\u2019s most valuable sockeye salmon spawning lake, The Tyee has learned.<\/p>\n

In a report due out this week, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and the Lake Babine Nation say an analysis of monitoring data from mine owner Glencore shows wastewater from the mines has included elevated levels of heavy metals, including copper contamination up to 20 times greater than provincial water quality guidelines.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what impact that could be having on Babine Lake\u2019s salmon stocks, which account for 90 per cent of the Skeena watershed\u2019s sockeye.<\/p>\n

But Donna Macintyre, fisheries director for Lake Babine Nation, says there is clearly a threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes it affect salmon? Obviously, if we\u2019re putting discharge into the lake, and we\u2019ve got zooplankton that the fish depend upon for food, it will affect them,\u201d Macintyre told The Tyee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these guidelines for copper, all of the heavy metals that are discharged into the lake, but they\u2019re basically for human consumption. Nobody has really done major studies on fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lake Babine Nation worked with SkeenaWild to analyze data that dates back to the mines\u2019 operation in the 1970s. But the research focused on the past 12 years since the start of Glencore\u2019s monitoring program at the sites. The studies were done on samples of water, sediment and tissue taken from lake trout and sculpin.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Babine Lake Mines Leaking Dangerous Contaminants into Salmon Habitat, Say Critics Advocates want greater oversight as a mapping project identifies more than 170 mines putting waterways at risk. Effluent from the Bell Mine, closed in 1992, remains in ponds near the shore of Babine Lake, a critical salmon habitat.\u00a0Photo from SkeenaWild Conservation Trust. Two closed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28788,30857,2656,1482,8051,23884],"class_list":["post-56504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-amanda-follett-hosgood","tag-babine-lake-mines","tag-copper","tag-mining","tag-salmon","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56505,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56504\/revisions\/56505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}