Dan MacLennan, Campbell River Courier-Islander, August 19, 2011

Environmental concerns continue to dog a proposed expansion of the Quinsam Coal mine, but local political support appears to be growing for the project.

Both were obvious at a Quinsam Coal open house last Thursday and at Tuesday's city council meeting.

After scrapping an earlier plan for an open pit mine, Quinsam Coal applied to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (MEMPR) for a mining permit amendment in 2009 to allow a new underground mine called 7 South at the mine site to extract 1.7 million tonnes of raw coal over four years. The application also renewed ongoing concerns about high sulfate levels in water coming from the mine into the Quinsam River watershed as well as elevated arsenic levels in Long Lake sediment below the mine.

Local groups including the Campbell River Environmental Council, the Greenways Land Trust, the Haig-Brown Institute, the Campbell River Estuary Group and the Campbell River Retired Teachers Association called for a full provincial environmental assessment of the Quinsam Coal application, but the province instead sent the application to its Vancouver Island Mine Development Review Committee (VIMDRC) process. That process is currently drawing to a close with a 60-day comment period set to expire next Tuesday.

Because waste materials - coarse coal rejects (CCR) - can generate acid when exposed to air, the application called for former surface pit mines to be flooded so that the CCR could be stored under water. Last year the province told Quinsam Coal to find a more secure storage method, such as storing the waste material in flooded underground mine areas. Quinsam Coal's response is the subject of this latest 60-day comment period. It was also the subject of an open house at Thunderbird Hall last Thursday.

"Hopefully (we're) at the point that the ministry is comfortable, that they can issue an amendment to our mine permit so that we can start the mining," said Gary Gould, vice president of Quinsam Coal owner Hillsborough Resources. "It has been a long process. All of the information, all the studies we have done, really support the plan that we've put in place.

"We feel it's a very good plan."

Greenways Land Trust president Richard Hamilton remains skeptical of the latest plan, which still calls for roughly 150,000 tonnes of waste rock to be stored in a flooded surface pit.

"I've been skeptical of whether the thing would work since I saw it because number 2 pit leaks 55 tonnes of water a day," he said. He said the environmental assessment process would have been better.

"We would have then had thirdparty scientists who were presumably at arm's length from this project, who would have given us candid, neutral opinions," he said. "Now we hear from the scientists who work for the mining company and we don't hear from anyone else."

North Island MLA Claire Trevena, meanwhile, praised Quinsam Coal's effort.

"There have been a lot of very valid concerns," she said. "I know that Quinsam is working extremely hard at trying to make sure that it does meet all standards.

I'm confident that Quinsam is doing everything it can to make sure that it is going to be operating in the best way possible."

Tuesday night saw the mine application come back before city council for the city's comment, where a staff report highlighted "several areas identified at the recent VIMDRC meeting as outstanding concerns" including:

. Water quality in the receiving environment (including potential for arsenic contamination and acid mine drainage)

. Sulfate and arsenic concentrations at the Long Lake Seep

. Potential environmental management and remediation efforts required following eventual mine closure

. City staff also called for continued involvement of the Canadian Water Network as part of the mine's technical review process. It was a Canadian Water Network study that confirmed high arsenic and sulfate levels and linked both to the mine.

"In order to reduce impacts to the environment as much as is possible, staff will encourage the Ministry of Energy and Mines to ensure that all information involving water chemistry is used in permitting decisions, and this includes inviting the Canadian Water Network (CWN) to technical review meetings," the report concludes. "Staff will also encourage the Ministry's process of upgrading financial security to ensure waste water treatment from the mine site will be treated in perpetuity and to ensure that future costs will be covered by the applicant and not by the taxpayers."

City councillors debated what comment the city should offer. Coun. Ryan Mennie opposed involving CWN or offering any comment to the review process.

"We may be impeding the process," he said. "When do we get to the point that we're affecting jobs just because we think we're doing the right thing but we don't understand what part we're playing in the process?"

Mayor Charlie Cornfield disagreed, but he too raised the jobs issue.

"The government is asking for the city's comment," he said. "We're the official spokesperson for the people of town, not just stakeholders groups but everybody that's here and those include the miners that work down below.

"What happens if that 7 South does not proceed? What happens to our social fabric? I don't see (in the report) the economic assessment or the social aspect if the mine can no longer function and that puts another 200 people out of works, plus the truckers plus, plus, plus..."

Councillors voted to offer comment in a letter to the province, with Mennie voting against, but councillors wanted final approval of the letter once it was drafted.

Outside council chambers, Gould was asked about the social and economic implications if the mine expansion doesn't go ahead.

"We simply see that as a hypothetical question," he told the CourierIslander. "We feel that the project's going to go ahead."

But Gould also said that without the 7 South expansion, existing coal reserves at the mine will be depleted within the next year and a half.

"Seven South is the near future," he said.

© Campbell River Courier-Islander 2011

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