British Columbia Says Mount Polley Tailings Pond 'Disaster' Cleanup Could Take Years

摘要

This summer's Mount Polley gold mine tailings pond spill in remote British Columbia is now being classified as an environmental disaster that could take years to clean up, the provincial government said Nov. 24. "The scale of the initial disaster is tremendous," B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak said Nov. 24 at a news conference, announcing the province's first progress report on the spill. "Full remediation of the impacted area is going to be a matter of years, not months." Polak said the mine owner, Imperial Metals Corp., has likely done less than 2 percent of the cleanup needed since the Aug. 4 incident. The breach at the Mount Polley gold and copper mine near Quesnel, B.C., dumped more than 10 million cubic meters (2.6 billion gallons) of contaminated water and 4.5 million cubic meters (1.2 billion gallons) of fine sand into nearby waterways. The spill led to a drinking water ban for much of the sparsely populated Cariboo Regional District and generated concerns about tailings ponds in other industries as well as on the Alaska-B.C. border (37 INER 1182, 8/27/14).