68 BCBusiness January 2015 JonaThan haywarD/cP iMaGes
Last August, a massive slurry of heavy-
metal-laced mine waste burst through
a tailings impoundment pond dam at
Imperial Metals' Mount Polley copper
and gold mine near Likely, B.C., and
onto the front pages of newspapers
across Canada. In total, 25 million cubic
metres of waste rock and water flooded
into the Quesnel Lake watershed. It
wasn't the sort of public face B.C.'s
mining industry, forever in a battle to
win social licence for its activities, was
aiming for.
While subsequent environment
ministry sampling of fish tissue and
sediment, which measured levels of
toxic metals like selenium and arsenic,
allayed some fears about long-term
environmental impacts, the economic
and reputational fallout from Mount
Polley continues. Operations at the
open pit mine, first commissioned in
1997, have been suspended "for an inde-
terminate period of time," according to
How B.C.'s mining
industry continues
to feel the impact
of the Mount
Polley disaster
by Andrew Findlay
the Spillover
effect
BAD SPOTLIGHT
The highly public
Mount Polley
tailings pond spill;
below right, Lawna
Bourassa Keuster
shows media the
water up close.
m i n i n g ' S
pivotal Year
