Taseko Mines' (TSX:TKO) beleaguered New Prosperity project appears headed for another rejection following a federal review panel finding that the massive copper-gold mine would result in "several significant adverse environmental effects."
It was the second time the project failed a federal environmental assessment.
At issue is Fish Lake, located adjacent to where New Prosperity is to be built – about 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake.
According to the panel, Taseko underestimated the volume of tailings that would seep from the mine's tailings pond, located two kilometres upstream from the lake. The tailings would have a negative impact on Fish Lake's water quality, its fish and fish habitat, the panel concluded.
Taseko has launched a challenge of the findings, claiming the panel used incorrect information in its final report, which was published October 31. Taseko's tailings pond includes a liner made of compact glacial till – packed, fine soil – that would restrict the movement of the tailings.
The panel, Taseko claims, used a model provided by Natural Resources Canada that did not include that liner.
But the liner is only one way of treating mine tailings. Technology developed in B.C. is being used all over the world to clean up water pollution caused by mining and to extract value from mine effluent in the process.
BioteQ Environmental Technologies Inc. (TSX: BQE) has built 14 treatment plants around the world, more than half of them for copper mines.
BioteQ's technology removes the dissolved metals and sulphates from tailings ponds, and produces usable metals that can be sold to help offset the cost of the plants.
Taseko commissioned BioteQ to submit a water treatment plan that would reduce heavy metals, sulphates and selenium using a high-tech nanofiltration and chemical treatment process.
But in Taseko's application, the company said it only planned to implement such a treatment scheme if monitoring showed that acid rock drainage or metal leaching was having an impact on ground water and fish.
Given that the review panel believes Taseko is underestimating how much seepage will occur, it begs the question whether the application would have been more successful if the company had committed to the type of treatment BioteQ provides.
"They did talk to us a while ago," BioteQ CEO Jonathan Wilkinson told Business in Vancouver.
"We did a little bit of a paper study for them and nothing more."
Brian Battison, Taseko's vice-president of public affairs, said his company has put extensive work into mitigating the environmental concerns of the project.
In Taseko's first mine plan, submitted in 2010, Taseko claimed it had to drain Fish Lake to build a tailings pond. Ottawa rejected the project, then known as Prosperity, because of that plan.
After that initial rejection, Taseko reworked its design and moved the tailings pond two kilometres upstream, saving Fish Lake.
The redesign added $300 million to the cost of the project. If built, New Prosperity would cost $1 billion.
But Battison stressed that, if required, Taseko is amenable to building a water treatment plant.
"If the water quality is undesirable, then a water treatment plant would be installed. It is a contingency in our plan," said Battison.
"We're not allowed to pollute – and we won't."
But even if Taseko had initially committed to some form of water treatment, it would not have satisfied the concerns of the Tsilhqot'in National Government (TNG), a First Nations council representing five communities in the area of New Prosperity that has long opposed the construction of the mine.
Rina Freed, an environmental engineer at Source Environmental Associates Inc., represented the TNG during the federal review.
She said a membrane liner similar to those used on modern landfills is needed.
"I don't see any other way around it," she said. "They need a liner. Think about it: you want to build a landfill right beside a beautiful lake with 100,000 fish in it, are you going to be allowed to without a liner?"
Battison, however, stressed that a membrane liner isn't necessary.
"Glacial till suffices. We don't do stuff that isn't necessary," said Battison.
"Engineers aren't allowed to do things based on imagination. Everyday we live the practice of mining. It's a hands-on activity for use and we use that to inform our plans and our projects."
Mine tailings can result in both acid rock drainage and leaching of metals, some of which – like cadmium and selenium – can be highly toxic to fish.
Fish Lake, which supports rainbow trout, and other lakes and streams in the area could be affected by either acid rock drainage or metal leaching.
The tailings problem in mineral mines the world over has spawned a whole subsector within clean technology.
BioteQ is not the only company that has developed technology that cleans up mine tailings.
While it adds costs to a mine project, the BioteQ process recovers waste metals, which have value.
"The metals are removed from the water, so the water is clean, and you can recapture the metals and sell it to a smelter," Wilkinson said.
"Our plants in China are profit centres. You recover enough metal from the water that you actually make a profit from it."
Joe Alphonse, chief of the TNG, told BIV that, regardless of what Taseko or other companies claim they can offer, New Prosperity would never be a sound environmental project.
"We have to move forward and get past this project," he said. "The only honourable thing for Taseko to do is to call the government and withdraw."
In an email to BIV, Lucille Jamault, communications manager for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), said the agency is reviewing the panel's report, but would not comment on Taseko's challenge on the panel's findings.
The CEAA has 120 days from publication of the report to make a decision on the fate of New Prosperity.
According to Battison, Knight Piesold, an engineering firm contracted by Taseko to work on the New Prosperity project, discovered the alleged discrepancy. A request for comment from Knight Piesold was declined.
Natural Resources Canada also declined to comment.
With an estimated 5.3 billion pounds of copper and 13.3 million ounces of gold, New Prosperity is considered to be the country's largest undeveloped copper-gold project. •
