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VICTORIA — It is not too soon, in Williams Lake, to talk about reopening the Mount Polley mine.Not three months has passed since the tailings pond dam failed, releasing millions of cubic metres of waste into central British Columbia waterways.
The province and the company are still working on a cleanup plan that will take years to fully implement. It will be months, at least, before any clear explanation for the dam failure is made public.
But Williams Lake city council, mindful of the uncertain future for hundreds of mine workers, is drafting a letter to Premier Christy Clark – expected to be approved this week – to urge her to get the gold-copper mine back to full operation.
The mine is 55 kilometres from Williams Lake, and many of its workers and suppliers reside in the community. The province has launched three investigations into the ecological disaster, and has cautioned against rushing to judgment on just what happened and why.
“It is going to be really important that none of us form conclusions until we get to the end of those investigations,” Environment Minister Mary Polak said last month.
In a recent interview, Ms. Polak said it is possible the mine could reopen before all those investigations are concluded.
The geotechnical inquiry – the engineers’ explanation of what went wrong – is expected to be complete by the end of January. A more complex probe involving the RCMP and conservation services from two levels of government could take longer. “For the sake of argument,” she said, “if the geotechnical is done and it appears that what the conservation officers are investigating isn’t germane to the day-to-day safety of operations, we could proceed.”
The government is partly to blame for the long timelines. Last month it changed the law so that an investigation under the Mines Act can take up to three years to lead to charges or fines.
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