Mining in Remote Areas Issues and Impacts - MiningWatch Canada

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EnvironmentalAssessmentbulldoze and build airstrips, camps androads without first assessing whetherthe work harms the environment.Canadian Arctic Resources74 Committee. Critique of theBHP Environmental Assessment:Purpose, Structureand Process (Northern Perspectives.V,24(1-4), Fall/Winter 1996.pp. 7-9)Biologist balks at Kemessrequest for new75mill location (VancouverSun, 07/23/96, C7,8)The suggestion that the location ofthe mill be moved to a new site is “asignificant change,” says Gordon Ennis,habitat biologist with the federal fisheriesdepartment. It creates “potential forsignificant adverse impact [on fish].”Whereas the original mill site was locatedseveral kilometres away from KemessCreek, the new site is on a benchabout 200 metres away. The creek ishome to Dolly Varden and brown trout,a species listed as vulnerable in BC.Diamond-mine scrutiny76 called “shoddy” (Globe &Mail, 07/18/96, A8)Critics warn that enthusiasm over themine’s benefits has overshadowed alack of adequate scrutiny of its potentiallyharmful effects on land, animalsand the human communities. They saythe federal environmental-approvalprocess has been reduced to little morethan a cursory overview.Diamonds in the rough77 (Nature Canada, Fall, 1994,pp. 21-31)This magazine article, written by EdStruzik, provides an overview of theconcerns voiced by different parties involvedin the BHP Ekati diamond mineproject in the Northwest Territories.These include opinions from industry,First Nation, community and environmentalgroups.Canadian Institute of ResourceLaw. 1997. Inde-78pendent Review of theBHP Diamond Mine Process (Areport prepared for the Departmentof Indian Affairs and Northern Development)Benefits of EAIn theory, environmental assessmentfocuses on predicting and assessingthe ecological, social and relatedconsequences of proposed developments,and on identifying waysto mitigate negative effects and optimizebenefits. If properly conducted,EA processes should reveal if andhow proposed projects can be implementedwithout unacceptable impacts.For mining companies, a well coordinatedEA of a proposed miningproject can contribute significantly toeffective planning. By identifying potentialproblems with, for example,mine design and waste handlingplans, and by bringing to light thefull range of potential impacts andalternative ways of carrying out theproject before the mine is developed,EAs can help to reduce costs and unscheduledproject delays and minimizefuture economic and environmentalliabilities.(71)Criticisms of EAThere are many criticisms regardinghow the EA process is applied tomining in Canada today. These includelack of assessment at the explorationstage, insufficient opportunityfor concerned citizens to participatein the process, lack of adequatescrutiny of projects, inadequate timegiven to the reviews, and conflict ofinterest issues that arise when thegovernment is both financeer andregulator of a project.EA lacking for explorationphaseAs outlined in the section on EnvironmentalImpacts, there aremany potential impacts related tothe exploration phase. Yet in manyjurisdictions there is no proc ess toevaluate these impacts, especiallythe cumulative impacts of explorationrushes, prior to exploration. Inthe Yukon, several lawsuits havebeen launched against the federalgovernment for failing to assess theimpacts of exploration activities onthe environment.(72,73)Inadequate opportunityfor citizen participationIn Labrador, there are few examplesof consultation between governmentdepartments on assessing thepotential impacts of exploration activities.(5)What little consultationthat does exist is often hampered bythe absence of critical baseline dataon wildlife populations and distributions,key habitat areas and archaeologicalsites. According to the InnuNation, even those rare instanceswhere baseline data exist, there is aserious deficit in the basic ecologicaland cultural research required to interpretthe data correctly in order tomake informed decisions.(5)As part of the environmental reviewof BHP’s Ekati diamond minein the NWT, hearings were held incommunities likely to be affected bythe mine.Kevin O’Reilly, staff member withthe Canadian Arctic Resources Committee(CARC), has commented thatthe BHP review was neither rigorousnor procedurally fair. Communitieswere not adequately included, inpart because the EA panel was operatingwith very limited time and financialresources.(74)Prior to the hearings, people weregiven several months to prepare.However, there were many barriersto participating in this process. Thecompany’s environmental impactstatement (EIS), which was almost1,000 pages long, became availableat a time when many people wereout of communities and busy withtheir traditional harvesting activities.Funding was limited and didnot allow for adequate preparation of24 MiningWatch Canada
detailed arguments and positions.For example, because the EIS waswritten in a very technical languageand was only available in English,preparatory discussions and workshopswere necessary in communitieswhere English was not a firstlanguage in order to prepare responsesfor the hearings. No resourcesor time had been allocatedfor these purposes.(43)Only $254,000 was paid to intervenorsduring the BHP review. “Wehave a limited budget,” said MichelDorais, then head of the CanadianEnvironmental Assessment Agency,which administers the FederalEA Act, and distributesintervenor funding.(76) The federal agencycould not find sufficientfunding to evaluate thepotential impacts of theproject on communities, yetthe federal government expectsto receive an estimated$2.5 billion in royaltiesand taxes from theEkati project.(43)The Canadian ArcticResources Committee hasnoted that other environmentalreviews, someof much less technicalcomplexity, have received more intervenorfunding than the BHP review.The Pearson International AirportExpansion panel received justover $1 million; close to $4 million infunding was allocated for the GreatWhale project; and the Northern DiseasedBison review—scarcely therevenue-generating project that theBHP project is—was given morethan $500,000.(76)Lack of scientific andtechnical scrutinyEA reviews have been criticizedas being less than rigorous in theirscrutiny of mining projects.In 1996, Royal Oak’s Kemessmine in northern BC receivedboth provincial and federal approvalafter going through an environmentalreview process, whichthe BC environment minister atthe time, Moe Sihota, called a“sound and thorough environmentalassessment.” Yet, only acouple months after the projectwas approved, the company revealedthat the soils at the locationof the planned mill site wereunstable.“It suggests that somebody didnot do their homework,” saidThe roads and camps built to collect core samplesand do other exploration work can leave a lastingmark on the landscapeRosemary Fox of the Sierra Club.“It shatters one’s confidence in theintegrity of the review process.”The company wanted to movethe mill to a location that was specificallyrejected during the EAprocess. Fox said this proposalmade “a mockery of both the provincialand federal environmentalprocesses.”(75)Critics of the BHP federal environmentalreview have called it “ashoddy and hurried assessment.”(76)The head of the Canadian EnvironmentalAssessment Agencyacknowledged that the federal EAprocess has become more hurriedEnvironmentalAssessmentBC Court quashes governmentapproval of79northern mine(Canadian Press Newswire,06/29/00)In a stinging rebuke to the provincialgovernment, a BC Supreme Court justicehas quashed approval for a controversialmine on a tributary of the TakuRiver in northwestern British Columbia.Cabinet ministers failed to take intoaccount the views of the Tlingit FirstNation when deciding to give the projecta green light, said Justice PamelaKirkpatrick in a ruling released Wednesday.“The failure goes to the heart of theenvironmental review process and, assuch, renders the minister’s decisionunreasonable,” she said in her judgment.Court rejects mine near80 edge of Jasper Park: Ajudge rules a controversialmine did not get enoughinformation on environmentalimpacts(Vancouver Sun, 04/10/99, B4)A controversial open-pit coal mineproposed for the boundary of a RockyMountain national park has received asecond setback, this time at the handsof the courts.The Federal Court of Canada hasruled that the environmental assessmentof the Cheviot mine, which wouldrun along the boundary of Jasper NationalPark, did not collect enough informationabout cumulative effects of themine together with other industrial activity.In his decision, Justice Douglas Campbellwrote: “I find that the Joint ReviewPanel breached its duty to obtain allavailable information about likely forestryin the vicinity of the project, toconsider this information with respect tocumulative environmental effects, toreach conclusions and make recommendationsabout this factor and to substantiatethese conclusions and recommendationsin the Joint Panel report.”81The Pits: BC’s Huckleberrymine raises moreconcerns about flaws in the environmentalassessment andconflicts of interest in government(Alternatives, 23(2), Spring1997, pp. 4, 5)The BC government has been involvedin the Huckleberry mining project fromMining In Remote Areas: Issues and Impacts 25
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