Grant Gordon, TideChange Comox Valley, Feb 27, 2011

Editor's Note: In response to an article today in the Victoria Times-Colonist
here Grant Gordon suggests the Raven coal project has a bigger dimension.
...
Lots of background information on the coal prospects of the Comox and Alberni valleys flows back and forth on the CoalWatch news server.

I though this message was interesting due to the broad scope of information contained within - job reviews, effects of coal dust, etc.

I find the remarks about the Bear & Anderson Lake coal mines especially telling as both deposits are below the horizon of your 'average' Comox Valley reader.

The Raven deposit has a strong correlation to the waters of Bayne Sound and the wells of the Ships Point and Fanny Bay water systems. Where as the Bear deposit would be (could be?) into the Comox lake water system (possibly also Cumberland's water system) depending on the lay of the land where the actual deposit is located up above the south side of the lake.

There are only three choices up there, the Trent water system, into Hamilton or Allen lakes or over the edge of the cliff into the Comox Lake water system.

The Anderson Lake mine would be in the face of the Chamber of Commerce's darling Mount Washington's ski hill traffic and run off would affect either Dove Creek or possible the Browns River depending exactly how the lay of the land & deposits are located up there. If it was Dove Creek, drainage would eventually wind up in the Tsolum River where all that money has been spent to mitigate the effects of Mt. Washington Copper. How ironic is that?

Once the Raven project gets off its feet and a coal port is developed somewhere then it will be a case of 'Build it and they will come' with truckload after truck load of coal coming down out of the mountains onto the Royston Cumberland Road from the Bear Deposit and then up to Union Road and around onto the highway. Do you think Trilogy/Cumberland is ready for that kind of traffic?

Or - and with the Anderson Lake deposit, coal would be transported from the hillside of Mt. Washington down to either the Comox Lake Logging road or the Strathcona Parkway down through the intersection at the bottom of the ski hill and out to the highway at the Dove Creek intersection. You think there is a lot of ambulances going up that way now, (and I know as I live on Piercy Road and hear them going by all the time during ski season) wait until there are 3 coal trucks an hour coming down and another 3 coal trucks an hour going up that hill 24/7.

So if the coal mine in Fanny Bay gets a toe hold and all the infrastructure gets built to handle that coal then there is going to be ever increasing activity through out the entire coal fields that are buried under the Comox Valley to the detriment of the roads, watertable, animals and the humans that live here. You can kiss that tourism dollar goodbye.

This project it the thin edge of a massive game changer here in our idyllic little Shangri La.

Grant Gordon

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