Ajax mine: too close for comfort in Kamloops? – by Nelson Bennett (Business Vancouver – September 19, 2017)

https://www.biv.com/

Copper-gold mine is just two kilometres from the city limits

“I’m not against mining, but…” That line from a recent letter to the editor in Kamloops This Week pretty much sums up the tone of discussion around the Ajax copper-gold mine – a discussion that has been going on in Kamloops since 2011.

It’s a discussion that promises to get more heated in the coming weeks, now that the mine project is in the public comment period of a joint provincial-federal environmental review.

According to KGHM International Ltd., the Polish company that would develop the mine, Ajax would cost $1 billion to build, create 1,800 short-term jobs over a two-and-a-half-year construction period and 500 permanent jobs once the mine is in operation, and generate an annual payroll of $60 million.

KGHM also offered a benefits agreement in which the City of Kamloops and a number of non-profit organizations would receive $100 million over 25 years. Kamloops city council basically said “no thanks” to that offer in July, when council formally voted 5-1 to oppose the mine.

Arjun Singh, the city’s deputy mayor, said Kamloops is largely pro-mining, but he’s against the Ajax mine, and so are many residents there. “We’re not against mining,” he told Business in Vancouver. “We like it, generally speaking, in Kamloops. [Ajax has], because of its proximity,… always been a very, very controversial project.

For the rest of this article: https://www.biv.com/article/2017/9/ajax-mine-too-close-comfort-kamloops/