Taseko seeks gold mine approval extension
Taseko Mines, which continues to push ahead with its proposed $1.1-billion gold mine opposed by First Nations, has launched a B.C. Supreme Court suit in an effort to get its provincial environmental approval certificate extended.
The project near Williams Lake received provincial approval and its environmental assessment certificate from the B.C. Ministry of Environment in 2010. The company had five years to substantially start work on the project and received a five-year extension in 2015 to do so. That extension ends Jan. 14, 2020, and the province has ruled another extension isn’t allowed.
If the deadline expires with no substantive work completed, the company would have to restart the B.C. environmental assessment process. That could prove challenging for the company as a new review – as well as taking time and money – would fall under a revamped environmental process that is being put in place by B.C.’s NDP government that won office in 2017 after 16 years of B.C. Liberal rule.
The company is also trying to amend the existing certificate – to include a new plan for the mine after an environmental assessment rejection that Taseko is also challenging – but that effort would become moot if the original certificate expired.
“My suspicion is this is kind of a Hail Mary to keep things alive,” observed Gavin Smith, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.
In an email response , provincial officials noted that if the Environmental Assessment Office determined the project hadn’t substantially started by the January 2020 deadline and the company wished to continue to develop the project, they would have to apply for a new certificate and start at the beginning of the environmental assessment process.
Officials said the assessment office would then work with the company to determine what work already completed under the expired certificate is still relevant and could be carried over to a new environmental assessment.
In its court filing, Taseko argues the province’s position that there can be no extension longer than five years is wrong. The company is seeking another five-year extension until 2025.
The company argues there are provisions in the Environmental Assessment Act that allow extensions even if a time limit has expired.
However, the Ministry of Environment’s court response argues those exceptions only apply to the steps within the environmental assessment process, not the extension of the time that substantive work must be carried out.
The company said in its filing: “Taseko has and will continue to act lawfully and in good faith under both federal and provincial statutes in pursuing a mine project on its tenures, but requires additional time to allow the legal process to run its course and to allow further steps to be taken. The regulatory delays to date in connection with the project necessitates an extension of the timeline for substantial start.”
A hearing on Taseko’s petition is supposed to take place this month.
Taseko, which operates the Gibraltar copper mine north of Williams Lake, couldn’t be reached for comment.
In a written statement, the Tsilhqot’in Nation, which opposes the project, said it believes the law is clear that the certificate can only be renewed once for a five-year period and that time has run out for Taseko.
“It is time for this certificate to expire, that’s what the law says,” said Jimmy Lulua, chief of the Xeni Gwet’in, a Tsilhqot’in First Nation.
When the federal reviews rejected the Prosperity mine in 2010 and 2013, they cited damage to fish and fish habitat.
Even though Taseko increased spending by $300 million to preserve Fish Lake, the second federal review found the mine would still result in the loss of fish habitat and Fish Lake was at risk of contamination from mine-waste storage.
An exploratory drilling program approved by the province in 2017 is meant to prove the company’s water management plan and use of a mine-waste containment area would be safe for the environment, the firm has said. That would help the company move the project forward, Taseko has said, as the federal decision didn’t preclude additional planning or development in the proposed mine area.