I would like to address important inaccuracies in a recent letter by Dave Werner, regarding the Mount Polley Mine disaster that happened in British Columbia in 2014.
I live near Mount Polley and was part of the disaster response, including closed-door meetings with the mine and BC, and witnessed first hand the aggressive, disrespectful and irresponsible way that Mount Polley Mine, and other mines in our region, does business. Nothing is “back to normal.” Our watershed, landscape, and communities have been permanently altered.
A catastrophic dam failure released 6 billion gallons of mine waste (including heavy metals and chemicals like mercury and selenium) into Polley and Quesnel Lake – the salmon nursery of the Fraser River watershed and a source of drinking water. Tailings were only moved where they needed to re-engineer back into full operations. Vegetation at Hazeltine Creek is struggling to grow in the tailings. Less than 5% of mine employees are native.
A responsible mine would have listened to the impacted communities and put in proper water treatment, limit access by wildlife, and remove the waste tailings from the environment. The mine should have apologized, and supported the local communities instead of fighting them every step of the way. The mine received public dollars and tax breaks, so who really paid for them to re-engineer and re-open? It was not a benevolent or responsible act. It was business as usual.
Jacinda Mack
Williams Lake, BC