Don’t ‘cherry pick’ tailings dam failure report: First Nations
Chiefs want B.C. government to implement every recommendation made by engineers
First Nations say the B.C. government must immediately implement all recommendations of an expert engineering panel on the Mount Polley mine tailings dam failure.
“I think they are solid recommendations. … We can’t accept cherry picking,” Xat’sull First Nation Chief Bev Sellars said Tuesday at an announcement in Vancouver.
“The government of B.C. have a real chance here to be leaders in the world in resource extraction, and I hope they take that opportunity and … there is not a fight with the First Nations people to make sure they do implement it all,” added Sellars.
She said First Nations and their consultants reviewed the panel report in detail.
The panel, chaired by University of Alberta professor emeritus Norbert Morgenstern, concluded the root cause of failure was in a design that didn’t recognize a weak layer of glacial soil beneath the foundation. The panel also raised concerns about the steep slope of the dam and lack of proper beaches created from finely ground rock (commonly called tailings) meant to provide a buffer between water and the dam.
After the panel’s findings were released last Friday, B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett said third-party tailings dam review boards, common in the Alberta oilsands, will become mandatory.
However, Bennett had a muted response to the panel’s suggestion industry move away from the conventional method of storing mine waste under water and behind earth dams. It’s the method used at all major mines in B.C.
The panel said the “prime candidate” for removing water is filtering tailings and dry stacking them, as is done at Greens Creek mine in Alaska.
If you remove the dams and the water, you remove the risk of failure, said the panel.
That’s a welcome recommendation, aboriginal leaders said.
“I think when you mix water and tailings, it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Tl’azt’en Grand Chief Ed John, a member of the First Nations Summit executive. The panel also recommended: • Requiring that companies become members of the Mining Association of Canada, which has a tailings management audit program, or commit to an equivalent program.
• Tightening mine design to include a detailed evaluation of all potential failure types and how to manage that risk, and a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the use of alternative tailings technologies.
• Strengthening B.C.’s regulatory system, including creating safety objectives that are measurable, such as for the width of beaches and the availability of dam construction material related to the final height of the dam.
• Creating more prescriptive B.C. government tailings dam design and construction guidelines that go beyond the Canadian Dam Safety guidelines referenced in existing B.C. laws.
• Having the B.C. government encourage the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. to develop guidelines that lead to improved characterization of geology below dams.
Bennett has said he will “initiate a code review” to determine how to best implement the panel’s other recommendations.
On Tuesday, in a written statement, Bennett said the government is “committed to working closely with First Nations.”
The Xat’sull have traditional territory affected by the release of millions of cubic metres of water and tailings containing potentially toxic metals into the Quesnel Lake watershed. The failure in the B.C. Interior was among the largest in the world in the past 50 years.