You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
I'm really surprised this hasn't been posted yet but talk about an environmental disaster. I remember being a kid playing in my sandbox with water and doing this exact same thing to see it go through the wall just like in the video. So pathetic and sad, hopefully this mine is Sued and fined big time.
Local residents are calling it an environmental disaster.
A breach of the tailings pond on Mount Polley Mine sent five million cubic metres of toxic waste into Hazeltine Creek, Quesnel Lake and Polley Lake, with fears it could spread far and wide in the coming days.
Residents in the area, along with visitors to waterways near the Mount Polley Mine close to Likely, B.C., have been issued a complete water ban. Affecting close to 300 homes, it extends to the entire Quesnel and Cariboo River systems up to the Fraser River, including Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek and Polley Lake.
People in Quesnel are also being asked to avoid using water from the Quesnel River, and late in the day the Cariboo Regional District extended the water advisory right to the Fraser River – although they said that was a precautionary measure.
There are already concerns that the total damage will be immense. The sheer volume of toxic slurry from the pond – equivalent to 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools – caused Hazeltine Creek to expand from four feet in width to 150, and some of the sludge has already made its way into Quesnel Lake and Polley Lake.
Phil Owens, a professor at the University of Northern British Columbia and researcher with the Quesnel River Research Centre, says it’s impossible to know at this stage where the tailings will stop.
“Once something starts, it will just cascade down through the chain,” he said.
“We don’t know when it will stop, and we don’t know when it will move through the system.”
Al Richmond, the Cariboo Regional District Chair and Area G Director told Global News that clean-up is premature at this point and officials are still assessing the situation.
“Our concern mainly is first of all for life and limb and there’s been no one injured in this event and for that we’re thankful,” he said. “Our next concern is for the community of Likely and those folks living around Likely that their water supply is safe and potable for them to use.”
WATCH: An environmental disaster is unfolding in the Cariboo. Catherine Urquhart reports.
Guess who will pay for the cleanup?
These are the problems that occupied ZioAmerican countries face when multinational "companies" rape the resources taking pretty much all the profits and leave the environmental disaster for the peasants to fix.
Heres an article from last year showing this very thing. Toxic Yellowknife mine cleanup moves ahead with community changes - myTELUS News
Quote:
YELLOWKNIFE - Plans to clean up what may be Canada's worst toxic site
...
The Mackenzie Valley Review Board agreed freezing the underground arsenic in place is probably the best solution.
....
There are also 13.5 million tonnes of arsenic-contaminated tailings on the land above. The 95-hectare site contains many structures that are further contaminated with arsenic and other poisons, from asbestos to dioxins.
... The latest cost estimate for the entire project is $903 million — all which will be paid by taxpayers
Fuck off already.... This is about the Mount Polley mine and the mine will pay for the clean up not the tax payers. Keep this shit in your own threads and stop ruining legit ones..
Oh man, I just flew over this area a week ago on my way up to Prince George in my little Cessna. Everything looked so nice and pristine, aside form the giant hole in the ground. Sad to see, I hope they are able to clean up as much as they can. And I hope they hold the mining company responsible for all costs associated.
We really need to have some sort of guide that companies agree to if there is ever a clean up. After the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico with BP's "clean up" who knows if these companies are actually doing all they can. The owners and CEO's should be held responsible and if the companies declare bankruptcy because of something like this, the blame should follow them wherever they go in the future. New companies/jobs etc. It's too easy to get out of.
__________________
FOR SALE: 14'' MR2 MK1 wheels with 90% rubber $130, FD RX7 Transmission $200, Hitch Mount Snowboard/Ski rack w/ THULE clamps, locks $200. PM me for details!
technically they'll have a reclamation provision already (how do they do this? I assume they have to be able to fund it, overseen by some agency, right?) - now that'll need to be a LOT LOT LOT bigger.
the markets don't think the company will go under, shares lost 40% of value today, which tells you something - this is a huge cost that they can cover. likelihood is that the value of the resource still covers the cost of clean up.
what a shame - mining has a terrible name in the first place, which isn't always fair, but this certainly fucks that name and muddies it (no pun).
i hope they can do something ASAP and decrease the effect on nature.
From the news conference it sounds like it's not so bad, might be a great time to invest in Imperial metals
Honestly probably not.
A few things:
1. There are already provisions in place for the clean up and remediation of incidents like this, and while there is a fund already in place (which is paid for by companies like taseko, imperial metals, Thompson Creek, etc.), but in this scenario that fund will not be used, imperial metals will be directly responsible for the costs associated.
2. There are already plenty of government associations (federally, provincially, and locally) who track these sorts of issues, both proactively, retroactively and during any incident.
Just to name a SMALL number:
-CEAA
-BCEAA
-CEPA
-BC Environmental Management act
-Fisheries act.
-Transportation of dangerous goods act.
etc.
Seriously this list is fucking massive, and in some way or shape, every rock, flora, fauna, water way, aquifer, and human being is accounted for by some group.
3. For something like this, the environmental assessment to appease all the groups and to determine the extent of the damage could take years to complete. That's YEARS to just determine how much everything is fucked up.
4. It could take 5+ years before imperial metals is done with this incident.
5. The full extent of the damage will be easier to estimate in the coming weeks, but the costs associated with the environmental assessment alone could be enough to kill some companies, we're talking the 100's of millions here (again only to determine what needs to be remediated).
Was in the gym working out and saw this on the news on one of the tv's and did a double take. That entire region is completely ruined for a long time. That being said I'm not sure how "bad" mining tallings are, gonna do a little googling on it. If they're anything like the tallings we get drilling/servicing then that's bad news.
Probably going to see evidence of the disaster all the way down to Vancouver judging by the quick map of rivers they showed on the tele.
Was in the gym working out and saw this on the news on one of the tv's and did a double take. That entire region is completely ruined for a long time. That being said I'm not sure how "bad" mining tallings are, gonna do a little googling on it. If they're anything like the tallings we get drilling/servicing then that's bad news.
Probably going to see evidence of the disaster all the way down to Vancouver judging by the quick map of rivers they showed on the tele.
It really ain't that bad. Certainly nothing like tailings from oil projects. Nonetheless environmental agencies make a big deal about anything that you can call a "spill", and the public just drinks it up like beer on a hot day.
Most of the stuff that's left in the water is just the portions of heavy metals that are too difficult to separate from the rest of the material. It wouldn't be profitable for them to try and extract that last little bit, or its minerals and metals that are worthless to sell. So they just dump it in a pond.
In the end, besides some of the acids and stuff (which is low grade shit) most of the stuff in a copper/gold mines tailing pond is already in the ground. The problem is now its just floating down a river with a bunch of dirty water.
Also if anyone is going to complain about the acid they use, go ahead and look up the process of "leaching" in an open pit copper mine. Way worse than anything related to tailings getting into your river.
Spoiler!
If there isn't any information just ask and I'll give you the run down on it. Should be something out there hopefully, cause its quite complex.
That's what I was assuming in my head. Can't really be all that bad compared to the oil/gas stuff like you said but unfortunately the moment you put the word spill into anything these days everyone is going to hop on the bandwagon... I guarantee arguments are already being drawn up on how they're going to relate this to the pipeline going in.
That's what I was assuming in my head. Can't really be all that bad compared to the oil/gas stuff like you said but unfortunately the moment you put the word spill into anything these days everyone is going to hop on the bandwagon... I guarantee arguments are already being drawn up on how they're going to relate this to the pipeline going in.
Exactly.
Unfortunately the reaches of this go far beyond just the pipeline, the talks of Prosperity and the problems that project has faced trying to seek approval have also already surfaced. It's unfortunate because the prosperity project could be extremely beneficial to BC. Developing that ahead of the development of our LNG resources would have been smart (atleast from my POV), but unfortunately having off loaded most of our LNG already through contracts means that it doesn't really matter when we pull the shit out of the ground, were already committed to selling it at a garbage rate.
Spoiler!
This all kind falls off topic, but I hate how every government only ever thinks about the short term, and how everything affects them in the short term. They need to think past the next election in order for us to get anywhere.
Sure selling our LNG made the liberals sound good to the people that don't know anything about the stuff, but now the minority of us who actually understand anything, are just scratching our heads at the whol ordeal thinking "wow that was pretty fucking dumb".
I guess we see this in every sector though, just like the dissolution of the HST.
I think what we can learn from all these things is maybe we should just hog tie the bandwagoners on issues like these and let the grown ups discuss and resolve...
I'm curious though meme405, why do you need a pond for mining anyway? do they use water + chemicals to extract ores? How do they get rid of a pond at the end of a project?
Definitely agree with you that mining and LNG are the only things that will save BC but damn BC is home to a lot of environmentalists.
Imperial Metals is stepping up to the plate and footing the bill, because this is THEIR problem. The issue with the pipeline from Northern Gateway is:
If a spill were to happen in BC, Northern Gateway WOULD NOT cover 100% of the cleanup cost. BC taxpayers would have to foot the bill after the cap that NG put in the contract. (Sorry can't remember the number.)
This is the main reason I'm against having this bullshit come through BC. If a company will not gaurentee that no environmental damage will occur, atleast say when something does happen, it's their problem and they won't just jump ship because it costs too much.
__________________
Quote:
[17-03, 09:23] Amuro Ray is it normal for my dick to have things growing on it?
Quote:
[15-05, 13:34] FastAnna You guise are like diet coke and I am the mentos
[15-05, 13:34] FastAnna Incredible. How easy it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by murd0c
I'm scared of spiders... When I see one I toss my cats at it
Imperial Metals is stepping up to the plate and footing the bill, because this is THEIR problem.
Imperial metals is not "stepping up to the plate", they are legally obligated to remediate any and all damages caused by the spill at their site.
I am not going to get into the NG project as that's unrelated and it has it's own thread, needless to say you are not completely wrong with your statement for that project. It is more complicated than you make it out to be though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jmac
Not that bad?
There was enough mercury in the water to contaminate 45000 square kilometers of water ... Not even including the 84 tons arsenic et al.
Uhh unless you have sources for this information I'm pretty sure you are out to lunch.
84 tons of arsenic is literally nothing. Any operating mine facility has 100's of thousands of tons on site. Its a by product, and a necessary facet to the process of even the most preliminary refinement of the ore.
In terms of the Mercury, I believe where you got that figure was again how much mercury was on site, which looking at the last Polley Survey, it appears they listed 3110kg of mercury as "disposed on site". This does not mean that all of that mercury is actually in the tailings pond, it just means that it is stored on site somewhere, it is possible that its in the tailings pond, or it could be in barrels somewhere.
I really highly doubt they dumped 3000kg of mercury into their tailings pond. I've seen some sites go mental over even the smallest traces of mercury in their tailings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by noclue
I'm curious though meme405, why do you need a pond for mining anyway? do they use water + chemicals to extract ores? How do they get rid of a pond at the end of a project?
As I alluded to previously, the pond is used to house all the water and washout from the mining process. You need the chemicals and water to extract the minerals from the ore. If any industry project wanted to operate without tailings, they would literally have to dig the ore out of the ground then just ship it out like that. You wouldn't be able to even complete the first few steps of refinement without some tailings.
In terms of how they get rid of the pond, every site has a different reclamation process.
A lot of older projects were developed without an environmentally sound plan on how to close out the project, or these plans were based on old research which has since been thrown out the window.
The most common way to deal with tailings which I have seen is to redirect the pond back into the actual pit of the mine (if it is open pit), and return the rest of the site back to its original form.
The thought process here is that slowly the pond will return to its natural state, as the sediments settle, and return into the soil. Keep in mind this process is the exact reason most ponds maintain an alkaline PH, its is very preferential as opposed to an acidic PH for this type of process. Now the negatives most people point out to this process is the fact that "well you still just left dirty water there", yes this is true, but where we left it was the best possible place for it, the open pit of the mine already has exposed ores with many of the minerals which are in the tailings pond as well, so the land is theoretically "contaminated" already (its not really contaminated as those minerals occurred naturally there).
At the end of the day people need to realize that without mining the way of life humans are accustomed as a modernized civilization is literally impossible, we continue to operate these sites and facilities based solely on the fact that the demand for what we produce is there.
Everyone makes us out to be the villain every time something like this happens, or when we get to discussing the damage caused by the extraction of natural resources, but the truth is that we just do YOUR dirty work. Without the demand you people create, we cease to exist.
1) Ignored warnings from regulatory agencies and its own employees regarding the safety of the pond.
2) Failed to take precautions and implement fail-safes to prevent/minimize damage.
3) Covered up minor breaches rather than reporting them (as they should have) and continued to ignore an obvious problem.
Points 2 & 3 are speculation at best, they will be investigated, but at this point there are very few people who really know what happened, I doubt you are one of them.
Point #1 -
The warnings given over the past 2 years have been for a varying array of items, for example failing to turnover some test data triggers a warning from CEPA; the warning does not disappear when you are turnover the data, so the fact that someone may have missed a piece of paperwork or missed taking a sample cannot really be held against the company.
Now a couple of the warnings the agencies gave Mount Polley sound pretty bad until you actually understand some of the reasoning. Understanding that reasoning takes an intimate knowledge of the site, and the life cycle of both mount polley and an active mine in general.
To make this somewhat short:
Mount polley is a mature mine, which means their tailings pond relies on a constant in flow and out flow in order to sustain their activities. Yes you read that correctly the tailings pond does discharge throughout its life cycle, it does not just hold its water like a swimming pool. The levels at most mature mines sit at a ~90% of their design height, this is the level that the pond is meant to be maintained at.
Now what happened at mount polley to trigger some warnings earlier this year was that during a rapid snow melt the pond exceeded the 90% level, and triggered warnings from government agencies; however, what those reports don't tell you is that the tailings pond was vastly overhauled and upgraded near the end of 2012. Polley was simply waiting for approval from the government in order to be able to run the pond higher. So even though they approached their maximum height, they hadnt actually, its just the government was a little behind on their paperwork.
Either way though it's kind of a moot point, because the weeks leading up to the breach, the pond was running at an acceptable level, and even in the very last review by surveyors, the pond was running as it was supposed to.
Honestly it's easy to sit there an armchair quarterback, but the people who run these facilities are VERY INTELLIGENT, they know one incident like this can lead to the complete decimation of a company, even one as big as imperial metals. So they do everything they can do prevent stuff like this. Unfortunately stuff does happen, engineering is based on the testing and statistics, and by deduction that means its based on trial and error. In this unfortunate case they got it wrong.
Also I will point out, maybe don't listen to the media so much, you know how much they like to make a mountain out of a mole hill (think the BS they feed you like "speed kills").
read the metro news today and dug it out on their website again. i laughed when i read this.
Quote:
Company president Brian Kynoch apologized to local residents on Tuesday and appeared to downplay the potential dangers posed by the spill. He said the water released from the pond was very close to drinking water. He also said mercury had never been detected in the water and arsenic levels were low.
Lol, I think they pulled what he said slightly out of context, the water without any sediment carries very little contaminate, it is in theory close to drinking water.
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
