A First Nation in B.C. has filed a legal challenge over the plan to allow the Mount Polley mine to raise its tailings dam a decade after a similar storage site at the mine gave way, creating one of the province’s largest environmental disasters.
The Xatsull First Nation has filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court requesting a judicial review of the government’s decision to approve the raising of the dam by four metres without “meaningful” conversations with the nation.
Chief Rhonda Phillips told a news conference in front of Vancouver’s courthouse that the province is allowing work at the Mount Polley tailing dam to proceed without an environmental assessment.
Phillips says her nation also wants a court injunction that would prevent the raising of the dam while the court process is underway.
In August 2014, a tailings dam at the open-pit gold and copper mine in B.C.’s Cariboo region collapsed, spilling waste into nearby waterways, a disaster the Xatsull says has devasted its territory and is “still harming the nation’s rights, culture and way of life.”
A statement in March from the provincial mining and environment ministers says the extra height for the dams is to make sure spring runoff can be safely managed and that the approval came after comprehensive technical reviews by experts, as well as in consultation with First Nations.
In a news release, Phillips said that the decision from the province to authorize Mount Polley Mining Corporation to raise the height of the dam fails to implement UNDRIP and harms progress on reconciliation after the disaster in 2014.
Phillips says that under DRIPA, The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, free, prior and informed consent from the nation is required before any development from the province happens in First Nations territory.
According to Phillips, the nation does not consent, and the province authorized the raising of the dam “based only on narrow design and engineering considerations under the Mines Act.”
She says the process with which the Environmental Assessment Office in B.C. engages with First Nation governments is not consistent with the way it engages with other governments, which shows a lack of respect.
The tailings pond spill, which happened on Aug. 4, 2014, is considered one of the largest environmental disasters in provincial history and one of the worst mining disasters in Canada.
Mount Polley Mine is 100 per cent owned and operated by the Mount Polley Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Imperial Metals. According to its website, the Mount Polley mine suspended operations for three years in 2019 for maintenance and commenced operations again in July 2022.
Last December, more than a decade after spilling millions of litres of toxic wastewater into rivers in the B.C. Interior, Imperial Metals Corp. was charged with 15 violations of the federal Fisheries Act.
The first court appearance was on Dec. 18 in Vancouver. Imperial Metals said in a statement that it wouldn’t be making further comments as the matter is before the courts.
