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British Columbia Mining

Mt Polley Mine Tailings Failure – by Jack Caldwell (I Think Mining.com – August 5, 2014)

http://ithinkmining.com/

Jack Caldwell, P.E. has a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering, an M.Sc. (Eng.) in Geotechnical Engineering and a post-graduate law degree. He has over 35 years engineering experience on mining, civil, geotechnical and site remediation projects. He has worked on numerous projects throughout southern Africa, Europe, Canada and the United States.

It is always a very sad day when a major tailings facility failure occurs. As one commenter noted to me: “Whatever the facts, the failure casts a poor light on the industry, and makes all of our jobs more difficult in the future.”

Today we write about the failure of the Mt Polley tailings facility right here in British Columbia. I write only on the basis of the information readily available on the web. I have no other source of knowledge of this facility.

My first impression is that this is in a direct line of failures from Bafokeng, through Merriespruit, to now. Nothing has changed, this failure looks just like the failed Bafokeng dam looked when I went out to see it the week after it failed way back in the earlier 1970s.

We still cannot agree if the cause of the Bafokeng failure was overtopping of the crest of the perimeter embankment by too much water in the dam, piping of water through a sandy layer in the embankment, or slope instability via sliding of soft foundation clays.

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Spilled waste water at Mount Polley mine had failed guidelines for human, aquatic health – by Gordon Hoekstra and Tara Carman (Vancouver Sun – August 5, 2014)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Possible contamination after tailings pond for Imperial Metals’ mine breached, sending millions of cubic meters of waste into waterways southeast of Quesnel

The millions of cubic metres of water that poured out of Mount Polley mine when the dam collapsed had failed provincial water quality guidelines for human and aquatic health in the past, according to the B.C. environment ministry.

Data sent to the ministry by Mount Polley as recently as Monday showed that selenium concentration exceeded drinking water guidelines by a factor of 2.8 times.

There have also been drinking water exceedances of sulphate over the last few years, according to information supplied to The Vancouver Sun by environment ministry spokesman Dave Crebo.

Aquatic water guidelines have also been exceeded in the past for nitrate, cadmium, copper and iron.

The release of 10 million cubic metres of water — enough to fill BC Place more than four times — is also potentially contaminated with toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury, a concern for hundreds of area residents’ water supply and important salmon habitat.

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B.C. mine had issues with rising waste water ahead of breach, consultant says (The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail – August 05, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Quesnel, B.C. — A tailings pond that breached Monday, releasing a slurry of contaminated water and mine waste into several central British Columbia waterways, had been growing at an unsustainable rate, an environmental consultant says.

Brian Olding, who operates Brian Olding and Associates Ltd., said Imperial Metals Corp. (TSX: III) had been working on fixing the problem with waste water from the mine. Olding said he was hired by the company as well as the Williams Lake and Soda Creek First Nations to review the company’s plans to treat and release water as part of the province’s effluent release permitting process.

“More water was coming in over the year than they could deal with,” Olding said. “They just kept building the walls up higher and higher every year and it got to the point where that was untenable.”

He said the firm was seeking a permit to treat and release some of the water to keep the size of the pond in check at its Mount Polley Mine, an open-pit gold and copper mine about 140 kilometres southeast of Quesnel.

The earthen dam at one end of the four-kilometre-long pond breached early Monday morning, sending a 45-metre-wide wall of water and mining debris into local creeks and lakes.

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Residents calling it an environmental disaster: tailings pond breach at Mount Polley Mine near Likely, BC – by Paula Baker, Marlisse Silver Sweeney and Justin McElroy (Global News – August 4, 2014)

http://globalnews.ca/toronto/

Local residents are calling it an environmental disaster. A breach of the tailings pond on Mount Polley Mine sent five million cubic metres of toxic waste into Hazeltine Creek, Quesnel Lake and Polley Lake, with fears it could spread far and wide in the coming days.

Residents in the area, along with visitors to waterways near the Mount Polley Mine close to Likely, B.C., have been issued a complete water ban. Affecting close to 300 homes, it extends to the entire Quesnel and Cariboo River systems up to the Fraser River, including Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek and Polley Lake.

People in Quesnel are also being asked to avoid using water from the Quesnel River, and late in the day the Cariboo Regional District extended the water advisory right to the Fraser River – although they said that was a precautionary measure.

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B.C. approves $5.3-billion copper-gold KSM mine – by James Keller (Globe and Mail – July 30, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press – The British Columbia government has granted environmental approval for a proposed $5.3-billion mine in the province’s north, which would tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world and has already received support from local First Nations.

The provincial environment and mines ministers issued an environmental assessment certificate Wednesday to Seabridge Gold Inc. for the company’s KSM project, also known as Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell.

Seabridge has applied to open the project more than 900 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, where the company says it would be able to mine 38.2 million ounces of gold and almost 5 billion kilograms of copper – enough to produce 130,000 tonnes of ore per day for up to 52 years.

The company says the project would create 1,800 jobs during construction and more than 1,000 permanent jobs if it gets up and running, though Seabridge also notes it still must find a partner to fund and actually build the mine.

B.C. Mines Minister Bill Bennett said the project would be a boon to the province’s economy and First Nations in the region.

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Teck still on solid ground, despite coal price slump – by Nelson Bennett (Business Vancouver – July 29, 2014)

http://www.biv.com/

BC’s largest mining company remains on solid financial ground, despite its profits dropping 63% in the first half of 2014 and a commitment to spend $850 million this year on a new oilsands project in Alberta.

In a second-half earnings call, Teck Resources Ltd. (TSX:TCK.B) reported its profits dropped from $197 million in the second quarter of 2013 to $72 million in this year’s second quarter.

That decline was due largely to a global glut of metallurgical (“met”) coal, which accounts for about half of Teck’s business. The company’s gross profits were down from $871 million in Q2 2013 to $633 million to date.

But unlike American coal miner Walter Energy Inc. (TSX:WLT), Teck has not had to resort to closing any of its B.C. mines, although it has officially mothballed the long-planned restart of the Quintette mine in Tumbler Ridge.

Teck estimates it could take several months to whittle down the current oversupply of steelmaking coal. Teck’s coal sales in Q2 were up by 500,000 tonnes, but prices were down 23% to US$122 per tonne. The company expects to ship 26 million to 27 million tonnes of coal in 2014, and has contracts to sell at US$120 per tonne for the higher-grade coal.

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Gibraltar a rock in stormy waters for Taseko – by James Kwantes (Vancouver Sun – July 22, 2014)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

With New Prosperity on hold, central Interior mine could fund acquisitions

VANCOUVER — The battle over Taseko’s New Prosperity copper-gold project has played out in the media, corridors of political power and now, in court.

Out of the limelight, Taseko has sunk about $300 million into equipment that will increase production and reserves at its 75-per-cent owned Gibraltar copper-molybdenum mine in the central Interior, and the strategy appears to be paying off.

For the three months ended June 30, Gibraltar produced 38.5 million pounds of copper and 667,000 pounds of molybdenum — increases of 37 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively. Gibraltar is Canada’s second-largest open-pit copper mine and one of the largest employers in the Cariboo, with 700 workers.

“We’re in the early stages of really starting to make it purr like a fine-tuned machine,” Taseko CEO Russ Hallbauer said during a recent interview. “It’s a big accomplishment for everybody involved, from the employees at the site to the corporate folks that worked on it.”

Gibraltar’s site costs — “what we can control” — are down to about $2 per pound of copper, putting the company on solid footing in case of a downturn in metals prices, according to Hallbauer. Copper now sells for about $3.16 a pound.

“We can withstand all the bottoms of the cycle, unless it becomes very, very extraordinary,” he said.

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B.C. mines get financial boost, one to open soon – by Ed Schoenfeld (CoastAlaska News – July 17, 2014)

http://www.krbd.org/

Canadian investors are putting millions of new dollars into mining projects near the Southeast Alaska border. They include the KSM and Tulsequah Chief prospects, which critics say could damage regional fisheries.

KSM is a multi-metal deposit about 150 miles northeast of Ketchikan. It’s near rivers or their tributaries that drain into the ocean northeast of Ketchikan and just south of the Alaska-B.C. border.

A group of Canadian financial firms are in the process of purchasing a million shares of Seabridge Gold, KSM’s parent company. They have an option to buy more, with the total new investment between $13 million and $15 million.

That’s not a lot for a large mine. So Seabridge, headquartered in Toronto, is negotiating to find much larger investors.

“We continue to seek partners and we have confidentiality agreements with several,” says Brent Murphy, vice president of environmental affairs for Seabridge Gold. Exploration continues at the KSM project, sometimes compared Western Alaska’s Pebble Prospect.

In an interview at a Vancouver, British Columbia, office, Murphy said the company has drilling rigs on site right now.Officials say the more-than-$5-billion project could be built and ready for operations by the end of the decade.

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B.C. claims privilege on Kitimat report – Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – July 13, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

VANCOUVER — In an ongoing tussle over the Kitimat Airshed Study, lawyers representing two women in an Environmental Appeal Board case have asked that agency to force the province to turn over the study or explain its claim of cabinet privilege.

The study, which the province commissioned last year to weigh the impact of industrial emissions on the Kitimat Airshed, has yet to be publicly released, even though some groups interested in its conclusions – including the District of Kitimat – had expected to see it before the end of June.

Now, the report is the subject of a tug-of-war between the province and appellants in the EAB case, which concerns sulphur dioxide emissions from the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter in Kitimat. The province says it received a draft of the Kitimat Airshed Report in March and that it is “now part of discussions around cleanest LNG requirements” and will be released later this year. For now, however, the government says the report is being discussed by cabinet and subject to Crown privilege.

Emily Toews and Elisabeth Stannus – the appellants in the EAB case – would like to see the report now, maintaining it would provide the most up-to-date information about industrial emissions in Kitimat.

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Court’s land claims ruling harms Canada’s business environment – by Gwyn Morgan (Globe and Mail – July 14, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

On June 26, the Supreme Court of Canada awarded title to a piece of the B.C. Interior roughly the size of Prince Edward Island to the 3,000-member T’silhqot’in First Nation. Initial government and business reaction characterized the decision as merely a clarification of previous lower-court judgments.

That was before it became clear that the land-claim entitlement criteria set out in the 37-page decision, written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, exceeded the worst-case scenario of both governments and industry.

Under previous legal rulings, the “basis of occupation” to be used in establishing aboriginal title was limited to the immediate environs around settlements. The Supreme Court has vastly expanded that, saying: “[A]boriginal title … extends to tracts of land that were regularly used for hunting, fishing or otherwise exploiting resources and over which the group exercised effective control at the time of assertion of European sovereignty” (that is, the mid-1800s).

The court justifies this extreme interpretation by stating “… what is required is a culturally sensitive approach to sufficiency of occupation based on the dual perspectives of the Aboriginal group in question … and the common-law notion of possession as a basis for title.”

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Why the Supreme Court’s Tsilhqot’in land title decision is no game changer – by Robin Junger (National Post – July 10, 2014)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Robin Junger is a lawyer with McMillan LLP and co-chairs its aboriginal and environmental law groups. He is a former Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources for the Province of British Columbia.

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Tsilhqot’in v. British Columbia is important. But it is not the first case dealing with aboriginal title and it is not a “game changer” that will undermine governmental authority or the ability to approve projects in the resource sector.

Perhaps the most legally significant aspect of the judgment is that it confirms, subject to certain requirements, governments – including provincial governments – can continue to regulate the land base where aboriginal title is claimed or proven.

And the reasons for which title can be infringed are not vague. The court has, twice now, expressly stated that these reasons can include purposes such as infrastructure development, mining, and forestry, provided justification is shown. So while this decision is historic and significant for the Tsilhqot’in people who have been the first to successfully prove title in a specific area, it simply does not represent a fundamental advance for the law of aboriginal title.

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Opinion: First Nations, mining for change – by Russell Hallbauer (Vancouver Sun – July 9, 2014)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Agreement would give new meaning to New Prosperity mine’s name

Russell Hallbauer is president and CEO of Taseko Mines

Many readers likely will have read that the British Columbia government has now signed 14 economic development agreements with First Nations across the province. These agreements commit the provincial government to share up to 37 per cent of the B.C. mineral tax from B.C. mining operations collected within First Nations’ traditional territories.

Over the past four years, $12 million has been shared with various First Nations. The most recent agreement was the one signed May 21 on the Huckleberry Mine, a few hundred km from Williams Lake.

A similar agreement is being developed between the government and those bands in proximity to our Gibraltar Mine.

These agreements, over the next 25 years of Gibraltar’s life, will allow First Nations communities to benefit directly over and above employment and other opportunities, in the financial success of the Gibraltar Mine.

Taseko personnel were some of the earliest advocates of revenue sharing when the process began with government and the Mining Association of British Columbia a number of years ago.

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Aboriginal group on Vancouver Island signs deal for LNG project – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – July 9, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

VANCOUVER — A self-governing aboriginal group on Vancouver Island has signed a deal with a fledgling liquefied natural gas company in hopes of developing a massive project to export LNG to Asia.

Members of the Huu-ay-aht First Nations say they are eager to work with project leader Steelhead LNG Corp. to build an export terminal near Bamfield on the southwest side of Vancouver Island.

Huu-ay-aht First Nations chief councillor Jeff Cook said his group is in a strong position to help nurture a major venture in the resource sector. He noted that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last month that the consent of aboriginals is required for how their ancestral lands are used.

The Huu-ay-aht are part of the 2011 Maa-nulth First Nations Final Agreement, one of only a handful of treaty and land claim pacts in British Columbia. “We’re open for business.

For too long, we’ve been left behind in the resource industry and basically consulted after the fact. We want to be part of this LNG project,” Mr. Cook said in an interview.

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Taseko sees ‘positive future’ for New Prosperity mine after high court ruling – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – July 6, 2014)

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Tsilhqot’in Nation says company is in denial about central-B.C. project, mine is dead

A Supreme Court of Canada decision may have opened the door to a twice rejected gold and copper mine mired in a legal battle.

That’s because the $1.1-billion New Prosperity mine falls outside the 1,750 square kilometres of territory in central B.C. for which the Tsilhqot’in now has title and where consent is needed for industrial projects, says Taseko Mines Ltd.

The aboriginal title question always hung over the project, and now it’s settled, says the company. “It’s the only mine development deposit (in British Columbia) that people now know for sure is not in aboriginal title area,” says Brian Battison, vice-president of corporate affairs for Taseko.

The Tsilhqot’in continue to oppose the project, citing hunting and trapping rights, and admonish the company for continuing to push a project unwanted by First Nations. “I think Taseko has a very twisted view of things. I think it’s very, very irresponsible,” said chief Joe Alphonse, tribal chairman of the Tsilhqot’in.

The continuing dispute over New Prosperity shows how the complex nature of resource development in British Columbia — where aboriginal, industrial, government and local non-native interests often overlap — will continue to pose a challenge despite the landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision.

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BHP Billiton Passes on [Vancouver] Potash Export Facility – by Rhiannon Hoyle (Wall Street Journal – June 25, 2014)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

SYDNEY— BHP Billiton Ltd. BHP.AU -0.69% let an exclusivity agreement lapse that would have given it the right to develop a potash export facility for its Canadian Jansen project at Washington state’s Port of Vancouver.

The world’s biggest miner wants to build its potash unit into a “fifth pillar” of its business alongside commodities such as iron ore and copper. BHP said it decided not to renew the agreement for Port of Vancouver’s near-100-acre terminal five site as it evaluates how quickly it needs to bring the Jansen project into production. The exclusivity arrangement expired last week.

A BHP spokeswoman said the move would allow management to “to actively investigate and assess alternative rail and port options” in Canada and the U.S., although BHP declined to comment on what could be the other leading options for fertilizer export.

“We have said we will continue to modulate the pace of Jansen development as we time our entry into the potash market to meet market demand,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “This disciplined approach gives us the flexibility to consider a broad range of options for the rail and port, including the Port of Vancouver.”

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