Read the report. While I appreciate the fact that this mine employs so many people and beings much needed influx to the local economy, I still see this report being a terminological exercise of a huge mining corporation attempting to divert attention from the potentials and the reality.
Every time the test results showed “elevated levels” of anything which would be deemed unacceptable, the next sentence contained the phrase “not expected” or “not anticipated”.
I have friends who work there, know people who drink the water in the area. I fear that the long term effects are going to be hidden behind corporate sponsored “smoke and mirrors” Read the report yourself, but remember that graphs, file pics of fauna/wildlife and manys pages of very carefully chosen words do not change what happened and who is responsible. Mt. Polley will no doubt reopen, I just hope that they are to be held accountable for what happens down the road.

For those who like to quote the term “non-event”, just remember that fluoride,asbestos and lead were once considered as safe materials. 2 of these are still prominent in our city water supply… along with high concentrations of copper.
If I were to tell you that it is not anticipated that these materials would leach into your water supply and that it is (at this moment) within the guidelines as set by the govt for safe consumption by humans but exceeds the guidelines for being conducive to plant growth, would this make you comfortable? This is in a nutshell what the report on Mt. Polley says.

One of the largest mining disasters in the world, and this is what the government and mining company comes up with? “To that end, the Province is calling for public input on the Post Event Environmental Impact Assessment Report prepared by the Mount Polley Mining Corporation.”

What happened to an “independent” Environmental Impact Assessment being conducted, by our own government’s environmental agency? Rather than ask us (general public non-experts) for input, how about allowing independent environmental scientists into the area to conduct studies and tests on the “true” environmental impacts of the tailings spill?

You are right watchdog, this is nothing more than a glossy public relations exercise, with the product being a biased, heavily censored, carefully worded, 77 page report that, in my opinion, who’s best use would be for azz wipe in an outhouse!

What event? Who would you people believe? UNBC is doing studies, or do you people believe they are part of some conspiracy? Sorry they are having trouble finding anything alarming.

Do you want the mine shut down, then where will your stuff come from? Guess your happy to have your stuff come from countries with a poor enviromental record let worker rights.

Do you guys even know what caused the failure?

Lack of critical independent thinking crowd followers.

Now lets see, the article says 181 hectares of lake bottom is covered in mine sediment, horrors. The lake itself is 266,000 hectares in area now do the math, .07% of lake bottom has mine sediment, tiny percentage. Oh also don’t forget the constant outflow of water and think dilution with lake water volume, inflow and outflow. Now the tailings pond held low levels of the nasty stuff to begin with and considering the lake itself already contains this nasty stuff naturally, what are the before and after levels, don’t forget the dilution. Haven’t seen any redflags go up yet and UNBC studies are trying hard to find a problem.

Lets not forget the natural sediment inflow into the lake from the streams and river especially the spring runoff. How does the mine sediment inflow compare with natural? I don’t know but I am sure there is a comparison somewhere and again haven’t seen any redflags.

The picture in the article, looks more like the results of a spring runoff flood. So folks I think if there was a serious problem we would have heard by now.

Poor engineering studies from a contractor is the source of this failure and luckily in this case there does not seem to be any serious consequences, big luck. Wonder if that engineering firm is being sued?

seamutt, seems that it’s a bit of a “much ado about nothing” situation!

I know that I don’t have feelings of guilt or remorse using any of my computers, even though they all contain copper and gold, perhaps even from the Mt. Polley mine! However, I suspect that this site might have a few members who might be feeling a bit guilty and remorseful using their computers. But somehow they manage to fight through those feeling in order to bless us with their words of wisdom! Lucky us!

“Approximately 132 hectares (236 acres) of land were impacted”

132 = 326