Dam Break in BC?

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Drache

Drache

1971 Dodge Dart Swinger
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Williams Lake, BC, Canada
Just heard (nothing on news yet) that the Mount Polley Mine had their tailings pond damn burst dumping the tailings pond into Polley Lake! They have then evacuated people from the West wise of Quesnel Lake as they are worried that Polley Lake will over flow and create massive slides threatening the couple homes there.

You can see the mine easily enough.

1 = Cedar Point Provincial Park
2 = Quesnel Lake
3 = The Tailings Pond

eHI0Eul.jpg
 
Residents and visitors on waterways near the Mount Polley Mine close to Likely, B.C. are being advised to use bottled water following an overnight tailings pond breach.

The Ministry of Environment said the breach at Mount Polley Mine happened in the middle of the night. The ministry along with the Cariboo Regional District, RCMP, Central Cariboo Search and Rescue and emergency management crews are currently on-site investigating and assessing the possible environmental impact.

Mount Polley Mine is an open pit copper and gold mine, which is operated by Imperial Metals Corporation. The dam that holds back the tailings pond is an earth-filled dam.

Rob Hood, president of the Likely Chamber of Commerce, told Global News that the Cedar Point Provincial Park campground has been evacuated.

There are concerns around the debris and chemicals from the tailing ponds coming down into Quesnel Lake, Hood says, where approximately 300 people get their drinking water.

More information to come.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1490361/tailings-pond-breach-at-mount-polley-mine-near-likely-bc/
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mount-polley-mine-breach.jpg


Robin Hood (yes that's his real name and he owns a company called Sherwood Forest Contracting) is a family friend and was my boss for awhile.
 
So the guy who will be on the "committee" to assess the damages and fines will be the same guy that owns the mine and is responsible for it....


Sounds like the fox watching the hen house to me....


I predict that there will be no fines to the business, and the people will suffer losses...


Scandal approaching....
 
The water ban, which includes all recreational water activities, bathing, and drinking will be in place until further notice by the CRD. It extends to Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek, Polley Lake and the entire Quesnel and Cariboo River systems. In addition, the Horsefly Likely Forest Service Road has been washed out at Hazeltine Creek, but the Likely Bridge is not affected at this time.
 

That is a crappy lookin dam anyway. Just a big pile of dirt.
 
RustyRatRod said:
That is a crappy lookin dam anyway. Just a big pile of dirt.
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Exactly. It was tested by the Government every year and supposedly had sensors in place to warn against a breach.

Two guys who wanted to be kept anonymous said on camera that a breach happened a couple months ago and the mine fixed it but they warned the big wigs that it would happen again soon and it would be big. They were told to just ignore it.

If that is true there will be a massive investigation and hearings on that fact.
 
Drache said:
Exactly. It was tested by the Government every year and supposedly had sensors in place to warn against a breach.

Two guys who wanted to be kept anonymous said on camera that a breach happened a couple months ago and the mine fixed it but they warned the big wigs that it would happen again soon and it would be big. They were told to just ignore it.
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This is exactly why they need to regulate this and keep on it. If you leave it up to the business to "watch itself", then this is what happens. God forbid that it may cost them money to maintain....
 
It will probably cost them nothing now, because they will simply file chapter 9 or 11 and keep on keepin on.
 
RustyRatRod said:
It will probably cost them nothing now, because they will simply file chapter 9 or 11 and keep on keepin on.
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Yeah, that's the crime of it all. They caused all of this mess due to their negligence, and then walk away with no repurcussions.... The citizens who got screwed will end up paying for it in the end...
 
I guess someone needs to determine if they broke any laws. They may not have. Google "Love Canal". That was a case where Hooker Chemical company followed every single legal disposal direction the EPA had in place at the time, yet they were persecuted to the point that they went out of business. While their dumping did cause serious damage (it's still closed off today) they still broke no laws. What are you gonna do? We need jobs and infrastructure and businesses, but then we want to turn around and regulate them into oblivion.
 
Here in Canada we're much better at holding those responsible to the fire , being a gold mine means they have assets they can't just walk away from . They file for bankruptcy the government will seize the mine and sell it to another producer to cover the clean up costs and the fines . If this was Alberta they could skate but here in BC they are gonna pay big time .
 
That's good. They should not only pay fines, but also be made to clean it all up and make it like it was before but with a proper dam in place and not a damn dam.
 
The substances found in tailings ponds depend on the type of mining operation. So here what they think was in there......

Last year, Imperial Metals Corp. reported that tailings from its Mount Polley copper-gold mine contained thousands of tonnes of copper, zinc, phosphorus and managanese along with:

Mount Polley mine on-site disposal in 2013:

Arsenic (and its compounds): 406 tonnes
Lead (and its compounds) 177 tonnes
Nickel (and its compounds) 326 tonnes
Vanadium (except when in an alloy): 5,047 tonnes
Zinc (and its compounds): 2,169 tonnes
Cadmium (and its compounds): 6 tonnes
Cobalt (and its compounds): 475 tonnes
Phosphorus (total): 41,640 tonnes
Copper (and its compounds): 18,413 tonnes
Antimony (and its compounds) 14 tonnes
Manganese (and its compounds): 20,988 tonnes
Mercury (and its compounds): 3 tonnes
Selenium (and its compounds): 46 tonnes
 
yeah gold always comes with massive amounts of arsenic and heavy metals , you would thing they would skim a lot of that out since it has value The fines will certainly be on top of the cleanup costs .
Is this the mine that imported all the Chinese workers because they claimed Canadians couldn't work the machinery ?
 
cannucky said:
Is this the mine that imported all the Chinese workers because they claimed Canadians couldn't work the machinery ?
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Probably because the instruction sheets for the machines were written in Chinese....
 
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