Mine Rejection Not Viewed as Negative Signal
Tuesday, October 2, 2012 @ 4:00 AM
Prince George, B.C.- B.C.’s Minister of the Environment, Terry Lake, says if the proponents of the Morrison Copper/Gold mine want to have their project approved, “They will have to file a whole new proposal if they want to bring it back” says Lake. “One of the reasons we denied this application was the lack of real data and knowledge on the behaviour of Morrison Lake, so that particular issue would have to be addressed up front and the design would have to be substantially different in order to make another application.”
Revised applications are not new. Prosperity mine near Williams Lake was initially rejected, and is now back in the process with a new revised proposal. “It is substantially different from their first proposal” says Lake, “and we will see at the end of the day if it passes muster or not.”
The Morrison Copper/Gold project is located about 65 kms north of Smithers alongside Morrison Lake.
Yesterday, Lake, and the Minister of Energy Mines and Natural Gas, Rich Coleman, decided to deny an environmental certificate to the project as proposed by Pacific Booker Minerals’. The Ministers say the project’s risks to the environment far outweighed any benefits.
This is only the third project to have been denied by the Province in recent years, the others being the Kemess mine expansion and the Ashcroft landfill project. Lake adds that while many others have been approved, the approval often rides on several conditions being met.
The rejection of this project comes just days after Premier Clark took a stand for the environment. Last Friday Premier Christy Clark told the delegates to the Union of B.C. Municipalities that there is no price that can be placed on B.C.’s environment and if the risks outweigh the benefits, there will be no Enbridge pipeline. Minister Lake says while the Province does consider there is a balance between risk and benefit “We have to consider the environment is tantamount to ensuring successful development in our Province, and when the risks are too great, then we do have to say no at some point.” He says in the Morrison mine case, they looked at all of the potential benefits against all of the risks “and the balance wasn’t in favour of this mine going forward in its current form.”
He says that is the balance they try to strike, “Is it reasonable to go forward given the technology and the kinds of things that can be done to mitigate the potential adverse effects, versus the benefits that do accrue to the Province. We need to develop our resources, we know that, but we want to do it in a sustainable way. This was one of the projects that didn’t convince us that was going to happen.”
Lake says he doesn’t believe this decision will send a negative ripple through the mine investment sector “In fact what it will say to proponents in British Columbia is ‘we’re open for business but it has to make sense, it has to be something can be demonstrated to be sustainable that the people of British Columbia can be proud of. There is a social license that I think is expected when we develop our resources, so I think this is the message , that we have a robust process, that we take these applications seriously, we are very thorough, when examining them. At the end of the day, if the risks are too high, then we simply won’t let them go forward.”
Comments
Its not gonna happen, we get the socialist party in, and the miners all go away.
Then you’d better tell your capitalist party to smarten up and start to get our standard of living increasing faster than our cost of living instead of what they’ve been doing, which is just the opposite.
The miner go away? Don’t think so since they need the resources and since they are here I guess they need to stay around. Maybe you are confusing miners with greedy corporations that don’t think they owe anything back to the people who actually own the resources.
If you look at all the increases in costs, like ICBC, BCHydro,BC Ferries, Transit, Government fee’s, Gas Taxes, HST,BC Liquor Conrol Board, BC Lottery Corp, etc; you are looking at a Boni Fide Socialist system right now.
The Liberals might be a so called *Free Enterprise System* for their Corporate friends, but they are socialist, when it comes to the average taxpayers.
There’s not much damage that the NDP could do, that the Liberals havent already done.
We need Independents to represent us, that are not tied to the Old Party systems, which have no benefits to the average family.
I don,t see how shuffeling the papers on a later date is going to change the enviromental risk of this mine, and how this mine is different than the other two that are there on a map in an other article. this is political I think. after an election ,liberals get in ,mine gets opened, NDP gets in , mine don,t open. and when it comes to changing our standard of living,if projects like this get canned it will go down, when we keep projects going like this we should be happy to keep our standard of living the same and get us out of the hole
I always laugh at the term free enterprise which to means being on the government tit. Tax breaks, subsidies, privatization with over priced contracts. Free enterprise is just reworded welfare.
Seamutt. You are the only one that makes sense. Does anybody here have the sense to realize that the “Million Jobs” that are supposed to materialize over the next 8 years in BC are not going to amount to half that? I guarantee 500,000 will not be created in the next 8 years! Just like the Prosperity Mine, Kemess Improvement, Morrison Lake project,Ashcroft Landfill, or Enbridge Pipedream that were all part of these supposed job creators!
I’m sorry I forgot the Mount Klappan coal project which China is trying to push forward. Just watch the movie “The Last Mountain”. Not gonna happen!
I’m sorry I forgot Vanderhoof’s Uranium secret. Another denied project kept hidden.
No love for the Liberals but if the NDP form the next government in this province then no NEW mines will happen. They shut down the province before in the 90’s and they will do it again if the get in….
I know one thing the NDP couldn’t shut down if they are elected—–the BCR, because the present government has already shut it down.
I’m voting NDP because I always pick a winner. The lieberal government thanked their lucky stars that the NDP were the preceding government so all they had to do was continue governing, but noooo they sold BCRail, introduced HST, their friends got richer but no new investment, the over priced olympics, cedar sky hiway, the roof of our sky dome, and the list goes on…. How are we going to pay for this? I know lets hike the taxes!!! You ask for more lieberals yecht!! I want to puke!!
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