Taseko Mines (TSX:TKO) is not giving up on its plan to build a large copper-gold mine in north-central British Columbia, despite two earlier rejections by the Government of Canada.
The Vancouver-based company last week appeared in Federal Court asking for a judicial review of the federal government’s decision to reject, on environmental concerns, the New Prosperity Mine project located 125 kilometres from Williams Lake.
The $1.5-billion project was approved by the B.C. government but Ottawa turned it down twice, in 2010 and 2014, on the advice of the Environmental Assessment Agency. The first rejection was based on Taseko’s plan to drain Fish Lake and use it as a tailings impoundment. The company later revised the mine plan to avoid using the lake but it was again rejected on environmental concerns. Taseko said the findings were flawed and relied upon the wrong tailings storage facility design.
Andrew Topf – MINING.com – February 5, 2017.