BC's Pristine Environment

[jawagord]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle19920040/

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.
The release of 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of silt into Polley Lake prompted drinking water warnings for Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, Cariboo Creek and the Quesnel River up to its intersection with the Fraser River.

BC is pocked marked with Acid Mine Discharge sites that are environmental time bombs waiting to go off, yet little is done about it while the infinitely safer oil pipelines are excessively scrutinized and vilified. FYI this mine spill is about 350 times larger than Enbridge's Kalmazoo river pipeline leak (3800m3).

http://focs.ca/wp-content/uploads/20...age-FNEHIN.pdf

[libtard]

Getting clean up crews into the area is going to be a lot harder than Kalamazoo too. Those 2 lakes are pretty much a write off now

[swimmer_spe]

BC does not have "pristine" land. There is clear cutting. There is mining.

Tree hugging hippies want people to "THINK" that it is pristine.

[Klazu]

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.

[Metro-One]

While I agree this company should be held accountable to the last penny for the clean up, it is likely not the end of the world.

Its not good, thats for sure, but what I hate about situations such as this is the knee jerk reactions that all mining is bad.

The funny thing is the world cannot function withou mining!

Do you like cell phones? Do you like green energy such as wind turbines, electric cars, and sola panels?

If you answered yes to the above, we need mining! Because they all use countless metals, such as rare earth elements, that need to be mined from the ground!

This is why Scandinavia actually retracted many of their prior mining bans because they realized that the world was becoming too dependent on China and other countries for their raw mineral supplies.

Also, the heart of Vancouver's business economy revolves around mining, you take mining away from Vancouver and you will have a piss poor economy, and then where will you get your tax dollars to build bike lanes and mass transit projects???

This is why I am not completely against oil pipelines either, I am against Northern gateway in its current form, but not entirely.

Events such as this drive me crazy, first because of the environmental damage, but second because it give fodder for all the extreme environmental nuts to be against all industry...

[Calgarian]

Sounds like this happened just in time for the Salmon spawn, and it was supposed to be a banner year for Sockeye apparently.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

While I agree this company should be held accountable to the last penny for the clean up, it is likely not the end of the world.

Its not good, thats for sure, but what I hate about situations such as this is the knee jerk reactions that all mining is bad.

The funny thing is the world cannot function withou mining!

Do you like cell phones? Do you like green energy such as wind turbines, electric cars, and sola panels?

If you answered yes to the above, we need mining! Because they all use countless metals, such as rare earth elements, that need to be mined from the ground!

This is why Scandinavia actually retracted many of their prior mining bans because they realized that the world was becoming too dependent on China and other countries for their raw mineral supplies.

Also, the heart of Vancouver's business economy revolves around mining, you take mining away from Vancouver and you will have a piss poor economy, and then where will you get your tax dollars to build bike lanes and mass transit projects???

This is why I am not completely against oil pipelines either, I am against Northern gateway in its current form, but not entirely.

Events such as this drive me crazy, first because of the environmental damage, but second because it give fodder for all the extreme environmental nuts to be against all industry...

Yep. The world needs copper and gold and it's got to be mined somewhere. Better we make money off of it than someone else, and ideally (although clearly not in this case) we will have better environmental standards than somewhere like China.

And for clarification, this company needs to pay every penny of the clean up as well as being fined.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Yep. The world needs copper and gold and it's got to be mined somewhere. Better we make money off of it than someone else, and ideally (although clearly not in this case) we will have better environmental standards than somewhere like China.

And for clarification, this company needs to pay every penny of the clean up as well as being fined.

This is my stance on the oil sands. There is a demand and someone is going to fill it, so we might as well step up and get paid for it. Despite the fact that mining operations in Canada can be done so much better, we still beat the vast majority of countries on environmental standards.

[Metro-One]

And now the social media facebook tsunami has started regarding this incident...

Again, it is not good, and the company must pay for the clean up (along with the fine) but my god, do people just love throwing numbers around with no idea of context.

They love to print all the scary words such as "6 000 swimming pools of....." and "10 000 tons of....." without any idea of dilution, natural ppm, sedimentation, etc...

Again, not good, needs to be dealt with, but also not as scary / end of the world as it looks from the current photos.

I also laugh every time I read people saying how we need to stop mining, yeah right, nearly every mineral resource we use come from mining.

And to me that is the best part, they always say to put full bans on mining, but they never seem to say their alternative. Recycling does help lower the need for mining, but even with a rate of 100% recycling, we still need new resources. Also, some elements cannot be recycled properly either.

So again, what is the alternative to mining?

As I posted earlier, everything, including cell phones, batteries, magnets for wind turbines, and even the holy bicycle needs minerals mined from the earth.

[swimmer_spe]

Everywhere near mines exist tailing ponds.

Anyone know why those tailings cannot reprocessed and made clean as the surrounding land, then covered over with natural landscaping?

[Metro-One]

Many are eventually after the mine is no longer operational. Some during operation as well.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Everywhere near mines exist tailing ponds.

Anyone know why those tailings cannot reprocessed and made clean as the surrounding land, then covered over with natural landscaping?

Many of the tailing ponds are a slurry and de-watering them is quite a bit of work. I believe in Alberta there is legislation that requires tailings ponds and mine site are restored. The Fort Mac Tailing ponds are being restored but slowly. There are a number of initiatives and a lot of money being spent in the oil sands to reduce the water prior to getting back to the mined out areas. As well some of the entrepreneurial types are going back to the tailing ponds to re-mine other minerals and metals.

I look at the former open pit coal mine west of Edmonton as an example of restorations.

NWT and Nunavut also has some restoration legislation in effect for the diamond and gold mines.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Airboy

NWT and Nunavut also has some restoration legislation in effect for the diamond and gold mines.

I heard the plan up there was to fill them with water and have them become artificial lakes. No idea if that's true or not...

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

I heard the plan up there was to fill them with water and have them become artificial lakes. No idea if that's true or not...

Not really much else you can do with them. And not a bad plan.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Anyone know what the water test results were?
Nary a peep from anyone.

[Metro-One]

Last I heard was the lake was within legal drinking quality levels.

Don't quote me on that though, as I forget the source.

[Klazu]

It was in the news that Polley Mine is now allowed to re-open. Did the mining company end up paying any sanctions for causing such a mess and ruining our nature? In news article BC politicians were just saying that "let's make sure it won't happen again".

Damn I am angry if the mining company did not pay anything for this incident which was all because of their carelessness..

[Denscity]

I noticed everyone is keeping quiet about the huge Alberta oil spill and couldn't find a more appropriate thread than this one. Should we start a new oil spill thread to mirror this one??

[Canadian Mind]

I think part of why the Nexen spill isn't drawing a huge amount of attention is that, unlike the recent Vancouver leak, there is a plan in place for dealing with oil spills in Alberta. They are practiced often and rigorously followed when a spill occurs. The other huge factor is that this is over land away from water. So long as this spill is contained and doesn't enter a moving waterway, it is a safe bet that the area will be completely back to normal within 5-10 years.

Keep in mind, while 5 million litres seems like a big volume, it's just enough to cover a 1 square kilometer area in 5mm of emulsion, which isn't 100% oil. It's a mix of oil sand and water. It'll be a lot of work, but that should be no problem for vac trucks to deal with the surface contamination, and excavators to deal with the subsurface contamination. Once the contaminated soil is extracted, it is seeded with hydrocarbon consuming microbes. depending on how long these microbes take, the same soil could very well be used for backfill.

[SOSS]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more coverage. This is a new pipeline opened in 2014 with many spill counter measures that all failed. The only reason it isn't getting the mass coverage is that it happened in a remote area.