A group concerned about the establishment of a magnesium mine near Rossland will go to court to try to force an environmental assessment of the project.
“We are going to pursue legal action,” Elissa Ferguson of the Friends of Record Ridge told Vista Radio. She added there have been precedents for challenging environmental assessment decisions through the legal system.
In an email to supporters, the group said it believes it has a strong case for a judicial review of the decision in the BC Supreme Court and has built up “a staggering amount of supporting evidence.” It plans to file the challenge this week, which it expects will cost up to $20,000. The group is asking supporters for donations.
Last week, a senior provincial bureaucrat decided the project would not be subject to a full-scale environmental assessment, in part because he felt concerns raised by the community, city council, and the Sinixt Confederacy could be addressed through the permitting process.
Ferguson said her group was not surprised by the decision, since it upheld a draft report they received in the spring, “but we are of course quite disappointed.” She said they had hoped their responses to the draft would have changed the government’s mind. The group submitted an expert report supporting their position.
Ferguson said they don’t agree the environmental and human health concerns can be adequately addressed without a full assessment because they feel the methodology and level of data collected to date has been flawed.
“Therefore the effects assessments that have been done are not adequate,” she said. “Therefore it doesn’t matter what the permit conditions are. If the baseline assessments are not appropriate, we don’t actually know what its impacts are going to be. So how can we write permit conditions to reflect the project?”
Ferguson said they fear the mine’s expected production rate of 63,500 tonnes, which was below the threshold that would have triggered an environmental review, is not its true capacity, and that all of its components would be overbuilt. They also worry about the potential for expansion, which they would like addressed at the outset.
Ferguson said they have “significant concerns,” including that Record Ridge is known for having asbestos in its rock. They are also worried about water quality impacts, metal leaching, and acid rock drainage.
“Even if [the government] doesn’t agree it should go to environmental assessment based on capacity, we feel there’s a very strong reason that they are not acknowledging,” she said. They further feel the mine would be “incongruent” with the local tourism-based economy.
We expect to hear this week from WHY Resources, the company behind the project.
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