Mount Polley mine offices raided
Officers from B.C. Conservation Service, Environment Canada, DFO take documents
Imperial Metals’ offices and mine site were raided Tuesday to obtain evidence in the provincial and federal investigation into the Mount Polley mine tailings dam failure.
The search warrant was executed as part of a joint investigation by Environment Canada, its enforcement branch, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the RCMP, B.C. conservation office inspector Chris Doyle said.
While Doyle said he could not say on whom or where the warrant was executed, Imperial Metals confirmed late Tuesday a search warrant was executed on its offices in downtown Vancouver and at the Mount Polley mine site near Likely in the B.C. Interior, 100 kilometres northeast of Williams Lake.
In downtown Vancouver Tuesday evening, uniformed conservation officers — some who wore what appeared to be bulletproof vests — could be spotted looking through Imperial Metals’ offices and documents on the second floor of 580 Hornby St.
Dave Hill, a security guard at the building, said officers had locked down the floor. He said they went up carrying bags and it “looked like they’ll be there a while.”
Doyle said he could not say what information they had used to obtain the search warrant or elaborate on why action was being taken now. The dam failure occurred on Aug. 4.
Doyle said they were gathering evidence to be presented to provincial and federal Crown prosecutors.
The investigation could lead to charges and fines.
“The investigation primarily focuses on offences with respect to the environmental management act (B.C. legislation) and the federal Fisheries Act, but is not limited to those acts,” Doyle said in an interview.
He said the investigation team uses “myriad” techniques to gather evidence, including interviewing witnesses and gathering technical evidence. “Because it’s still an ongoing investigation, we don’t want to release any particulars that might jeopardize the investigation,” Doyle said.
In a written statement, Imperial Metals said the search warrants related to an investigation into possible breaches of the Fisheries Act.
“The company understands warrants to be a normal means of investigation, and co-operated fully with the regulatory authorities,” the short statement read.
John Horgan, the leader of the B.C. NDP, asked how the Liberal government had not already gathered “every possible relevant document from the company.”
“We don’t yet have details about the basis for warrants, but I’m very concerned it is only happening now — six months after the disaster. Would not both the engineers’ report and the offence investigation benefited from having Imperial Metals’ documents earlier?”
The execution of the search warrants comes on the heels of the release last week of the findings of an expert engineering panel examining the cause of the tailings-dam failure.
The three-member panel concluded the root cause of the failure was a design problem that failed to account for a weak glacial soil layer beneath the foundation of the dam. The panel also had other concerns, including that the dam slopes were steeper than originally designed and a failure to create proper beaches from finely ground rock, known as tailings, meant to provide a safety buffer between water and the dam.
The dam failure released millions of cubic metres of water and tailings containing potentially toxic metals into the Quesnel Lake watershed.
The office of the chief inspector of mines also has an investigation underway into the dam failure, expected to be completed by June.