The Vancouver Sun reports, “At a public hearing in Williams Lake (on World Water Day), the Ottawa-based Council of Canadians urged a federal review panel to reject a proposed mining project about 200 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake. The hearing was packed by about 300 people.”
“The proposal is by Vancouver-based Taseko Mines, which says it must destroy a lake and a creek in order to mine a copper-gold deposit.”
“Meera Karunananthan, a spokeswoman for the Council of Canadians, said… many environmental groups are concerned about a section of the federal Fisheries Act that allows mining companies to dump their waste into lakes by redefining them as ‘tailing impoundment areas.'”
Photo: Council of Canadians water campaigner Meera Karunananthan at Teztan Biny in July 2009.
“Meanwhile, an environmental group in Newfoundland said it will mount a legal challenge of that section of the Act. (Council chapter activist) Ken Kavanagh, spokesman for the new Pond Alliance for the Protection of Canadian Waters, said the challenge is aimed at protecting Sandy Pond near Long Harbour, NL, which has already been approved for use as a dump site for the toxic waste of a nickel mining project by Vale Inco, a Toronto-based Brazilian-owned company.”
The full article is at http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/story.html?id=2713360.
