This incident made me so sad and angry. This was not unexpected and the mining company had received FIVE warnings from the authorities that this could happen. Yet nothing was done to address those warnings. It is completely similar to the immense BP oil spill in Mexican Gulf and many others, where negligence of the warnings have resulted in disasters.
The mining company CEO is saying that the water is already "close to drinking quality", so he should be made to drink that very same water publicly. Also the company should be fined
to the last penny for all expenses occurring from trying to repair some of the damage done. Even then there will be lots of permanent damage to this area, no matter how much money is being poured into the clean-up operation. But that doesn't mean the companies should be left off the hook and they have to pay to the full extent for the damages they have caused.
I love Canada, but it really saddens me how we are destroying our environment for a quick buck like a third world country. It feels like many people are thinking that we have such a vast country that any incident will be just a drop in the sea. Perhaps one day people will realize the true extent of these incidents to our formerly pristine nature. For example the Oilsands venture will end up badly destroying the whole Northern Alberta for decades to come after the all the sweet oil money has already run out.
Mining business is very dirty business and there is no way to clean up the billions of liters of waste water these mines cause during their processes. The water is stored in these huge tailing ponds without any proper solution to clean it up. The only solution is to release it over time in "small" amounts (millions of liters) and just hope it will dissolve in the big waterways.