http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/bri ... e19920040/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.
A summary of material inside the tailings pond filed with E
nvironment Canada said there was over 400,000 kilograms of arsenic, 177,000 kilograms of lead and 18,400 tonnes of copper and its compounds in the pond.Olding said not only is the water potentially hazardous, so are the tailings sediments carried along with it, he said.
“You don’t know how far they’re going to travel until you check it out and you don’t know what’s in those sediments.
If they dry out on the side, and grass starts to grow on them, and animals start to eat them, and Indians start killing moose, bear, whatever else eats there, then you’ve got a human contaminant issue.”
Now the Bullshit brigade.Bennett, who was travelling to the area on Tuesday, said government and company officials will get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
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