Clearing The Queue...Liberals Bolster Environmental Assessment Office

By 250 News

With 2005 going into the record books as a banner year for mining exploration in B.C.  -- $200-million dollars was spent last year -- local M.L.A. Pat Bell says the Liberals are taking steps to remove barriers to continued growth.

Bell says included in last week's budget was a commitment to increase funding to the Environmental Assessment Office by $6-million dollars over the next three years, a measure that will see the addition of nine new staff members.

The M.L.A. for Prince George-North says the extra funding is aimed at clearing a backlog of applications in the Office.  "The Environmental Assessment Office is seeing huge increases in activity as a result of the new mining projects, the new energy projects, tourism."

Bell says, "When we came to office in 2001, there was just one project in the Environmental Assessment Office for mining.  Today, there are a total of 19 different projects in the Environmental Assessment Office around mining."  He adds there are 27 different projects, not all mining, in the pre-application phase.

Bell says once a project is in the "active" process of environmental assessment, the Office has just a six-month window within which to make a recommendation to the Environment Minister.  He says having additional staff in the Office, "should allow these projects to move ahead and see activity on the land base."

"It's important that if we want to ensure that folks are going to do business in British Columbia that their projects are dealt with in an expedient fashion and that's exactly what this $6-million dollars is intended to do."

Complete details on projects in the queue are available on the E.A. Office's website at:  www.eao.gov.bc.ca

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