Charges laid in relation to 2014 tailings pond breach at the Mount Polley Mine in British Columbia Press Release by Environment and Climate Change Canada, December 10, 2024 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Environment and Climate Change Canada
Charges have been laid in relation to the tailings pond breach at the Mount Polley Mine that occurred in August 2014. In total, 15 charges have now been approved to proceed by direct indictment against IMPERIAL METALS CORPORATION, MOUNT POLLEY MINING CORPORATION, and WOOD CANADA LIMITED / WOOD CANADA LIMITÉE for contraventions of sections 35(1) and 36(3) of the federal Fisheries Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. F-14).
A first appearance date has been scheduled for December 18, 2024, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
As the charges are currently before the Court, there will be no further comment at this time.
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Mining company charged 10 years after spilling toxic waste into B.C. waters, Collapse of Mount Polley tailings dam considered one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history by Andrew Kurjata, CBC News, Dec 10, 2024
More than a decade after spilling millions of litres of toxic wastewater into rivers in the B.C. Interior, Imperial Metals Corp. has been charged with 15 violations of the federal Fisheries Act.
The charges were announced Tuesday by the B.C. Conservation Officer Service, which said it worked with the Department of Fisheries and Environment and Climate Change Canada to build the case for taking the company to court.
The service said all three agencies had been working together as the Mount Polley Integration Investigation Task Force and that fifteen charges had been approved against Imperial Metals Corporation, its subsidiary, Mount Polley Mining Corporation, and the engineering firm Wood Canada Limited, all of whom are facing the same charges.
The tailings pond spill, which happened on Aug. 4, 2014, is considered one of the largest environmental disasters in provincial history and one of the worst mining disasters in Canada.
It happened following the failure of the Mount Polley tailings dam, which sent hundreds of tonnes of toxic materials into local waterways near Likely, B.C., about 170 kilometres south of Prince George.
Designers overlooked or dismissed test results
Mine records filed with Environment Canada reported that materials including arsenic, lead, copper and nickel flowed out in the sludge.
“It was like standing by Niagara Falls. It was a deep thundering roar,” recalled Likely resident Douglas Watt, a retired mine worker, in an interview on Dec. 10. He recounted warnings being given out to avoid the water and the fear residents felt not knowing how they would be affected.
He expressed relief that a decade on, “it looks like they [the companies] will finally be held accountable,”
I expect the courts will do their jobs, will not serve justice, and will only protect the law violating companies and their owners/investors so as to protect the status quo and the very rich noting the environmental impacts of the breach are still being seen by residents who live in the area and are worried about the health of the fish, water and environment.
Companies face fines of up to $6M
Woopty-doo, that’ll pay to clean up about one mile of contamination, if the courts, after another decade or two, even order fines. Most likely, the courts will let the companies off, as usual to protect the status quo (the billionaires) or, if they do order fines against them, will order then under creative sentencing as donations to corporate-corrupted envNGOs like Pembina Institute, Sierra Club, Ecojustice, Council of Canadians which the companies can use as nice tax write offs and to boast about, and the NGOs will use to synergize harmed communities to propagandize for industry
The charges against the companies are outlined in an indictment filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Dec. 6.
Signed by director of public prosecutions George Dolhai in Ottawa, the indictment alleges the companies allowed a “deleterious substance” from the mine’s tailings pond into several bodies of water “frequented by fish,” including Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, Bootjack Creek, Edney Creek and Quesnel Lake.
The indictment alleges the companies’ work at the mine near Likely, B.C., “resulted in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery … namely the death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat.”
The offences under the Fisheries Act listed in the indictment carry fines between $500,000 and $6 million.The Act needs serious upgrading of fines to match today’s corporate evil and harms caused by it
Individuals guilty of an offence under the act can be imprisoned for up to three years if Judges would never dare, they are plunked on the bench to protect the rich and their environment-destroying corporations. Besides, gov’ts also just serve corporations and let them rape us and the environment however they like, sometimes tossing a feeble charge or fine here or there and most often punishing and re-harming the harmedconvicted for a second time. However, only companies face charges in connection to the dam’s collapse. The law violating owners are too rich for Canada to dare spank
All three companies are set to make their first court appearance in Vancouver on Dec. 18, the Conservation Officer Service said.
Imperial Metals said in a statement the company received the indictment this week, and as the matter is before the courts, it won’t be making further comments.
Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix said during an unrelated news conference on Tuesday morning that he had not yet seen the charges and was unable to comment.
A three-year deadline for provincial charges in the case passed in 2017.Corrupt fucking cowards.
Dam design caused failure: report
Previous investigations into the tailings pond breach have blamed poor design for the failure of the tailing pond dam.Appears intentional design to me, standard mining practice in rape and pillage Canada. Breaches of toxic tailings lakes is how the bitumen mining monsters plan to get rid of their deadly waste they do not want to pay to clean up, with AER, Alberta and the feds gleefully and spinelessly allowing it to unfold. Humans do not deserve to live on this magnificent planet.
A report from an independent expert panel released in 2015 said the engineers didn’t take into account the complexity of the geological environment in relation to the dam embankment foundation. I expect they did! All part of the usual get rid of the waste cheaply plan.
It says engineers failed to recognize that the dam was “susceptible to undrained failure” when subject to the stresses associated with the embankment.
In 2022, Engineers and Geoscientists B.C., the provincial regulatory and licensing body, fined two former project engineers a combined $226,500, while a third was temporarily suspended and ordered to complete additional training.Pure feeble reward the criminal rich, pick a few to pin the blame on, and kiss them.
A post from August on the Mount Polley Mine website says more than $70 million has been invested in environmental repair and cleanup efforts, “demonstrating a strong commitment to restoring the affected areas.”bullshit. That’s nothing for such rich mining monsters
In September 2023, the Mount Polley Mining Corp. was awarded the Jake McDonald Reclamation Award for its habitat remediation work in Hazeltine Creek and adjacent areas.
The company said in its post that ongoing environmental monitoring has shown steady recovery, and its efforts will ensure the long-term health of the ecosystem in the area. Ya, along with the next intentional dump, and the next, and the next.
Impact still being seen
Researcher Phil Owens of the University of Northern British Columbia said about 25 million cubic metres of tailings material ended up in Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake — the equivalent of 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — and that most of it is still sitting at the bottom of the lake.
“This was an instantaneous catastrophic failure … and yet still 10 years later, we’re still picking up levels of metals like copper flowing down the Quesnel River and getting into the water column of the lake,” he said in an interview in August 2024, marking the 10th anniversary of the disaster. “That is quite surprising.”
Speaking to CBC News on Dec. 10, Owens said a positive of the charges finally coming to court is it would present an opportunity for all of the research into the impacts of the tailings pond breach to be collected in one place.
He also said he was hopeful it would get both companies and government regulators to “pay closer attention to the environmental impacts of mining operations.”Will never happen. Companies and their enablers, our pathetic self regulators and gov’ts serve the polluters, and bend over for them. Deregulation is the name of the profit-raping game.
Jamie Kneen, a spokesman with Mining Watch Canada, said he was surprised it had taken so long for anyone involved to face charges, and he remained skeptical about whether justice would be served on a level proportionate to the damage caused.I am not at surprised it took this long. Standard fuck the environment, water, wildlife, fish, birds Canadian practice. I am stunned, charges were laid at all. I expect the courts will use “Creepy” stepped down in shame ex supreme court judge Russell Brown and Bev McLachlin’s vile Jordan ruling to let the companies off for having taken too long to get anywhere, and our authorities know it.
“I mean, Hazeltine Creek was basically completely wiped out,” he said. “For 10 years now, the company hasn’t faced any consequences for this, hasn’t faced any charges, hasn’t paid any fines … 10 years is a long time to not face any consequences.”
Watt expressed similar concerns, saying in the years since Imperial Metals has been allowed to continue mining, he and other locals have felt largely powerless to have any say over how it operates within their community.
“We feel very left out, very concerned,” he said. “But hopefully [the charges] will signal that the ministries are somewhat serious about really protecting the environment.”Hope is mighty powerful and only serves polluters and rapists. It’s ensures nothing gets done.
With files from the Hanna Petersen, Courtney Dickson and the Canadian Press
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