Deregulation and staffing cutbacks to BC government regulators may be to blame to Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley tailings pond disaster, which dumped five million cubic metres of toxic waste near the Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers.
“The government isn’t inspecting the mines, and the mining companies know it,” said Glenda Ferris, a longtime advocate for environmentally safe mining in British Columbia who has previously consulted with government and First Nations on mining issues. A landowner near Houston, BC, she lives beside the now-closed Equity Silver mine, which dumped acid-generating tailings waste into the environment in 1982.
Ferris said the BC government has relied excessively on the mining industry to self-regulate itself as ministries underwent budget cuts in the 1990s, meaning that the problem could be systemic.
Jenny Uechi – Vancouver Observer – Aug 5th, 2014.
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