Trucks are hauling contaminated soil from the former Britannia Mine up into the mountains of Britannia Beach without a hint of the environmental concerns of the past.
When Tim Drummond, a former owner of the Britannia lands, announced in 2001 that he wanted to accept contaminated soil and charge money to dump it in the Jane Basin area. the plan was rejected by the provincial government.
Now, with Drummond no longer a player in Britannia, the provincial government is heading up the remediation effort, the plan has been altered to make the practice more acceptable.
Drummond wanted to accept contaminated soil from other locations and charge the owners of the soil to dump the unwanted material into the mine works.
Under the new plan, however, the province is not accepting soil from outside of Britannia. The material going into the mine works is being taken from the contaminated areas of Britannia.
According to a technical assessment report prepared by Golder Associates as part of the permitting process, most of the soil being moved was originally taken from the Jane Basin area.
According to Brian Clarke, the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management Crown Contaminated Sites Program Director, the work started early last month. The July 22 Britannia remediation progress report indicates that work began on July 7. "The work is continuing and is ahead of schedule," Clarke told The Chief on Wednesday (Aug. 4).
Before Clarke and his ministry started the work, applications had to be filed with the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Land, Water and Air Protection.
"We do have the approvals needed," Clarke said. "The information was communicated to the community at an information open house in the spring and no concerns were expressed at that time."
"The objective of the soil/rock relocation project is to remove material from locations where it has a high risk of adversely affecting the environment to one where this risk is much reduced," the Golder report reads. "The materials in question contain elevated concentrations of heavy metals, and have the potential to generate acidic leachate. The placement of these fills in Jane Basin will facilitate the treatment of this leachate by directing it, via the existing mine workings, to a deep outfall in Howe Sound and once constructed (2004), to a water treatment plant."
Approximately 15,000m3 of soil and rock on the Britannia Mine property is going to be transported to Jane Basin this summer. The metal contaminated materials will go into the East Bluff Glory Hole and the open pit areas. The total capacity of the areas is 100,000m3 so the work this summer will only fill a fraction of the available dumping area.
The contaminated material is expected to enter the mine workings and eventually pass through the water treatment plant that is being built in Britannia to clean the acid-laced water that currently flows out of the mine.
The Golder report goes on to say that, based on the available information, it is considered that the placement of 15,000m3 of acid-generating material in Jane Basin will not significantly affect the existing environment in Jane Basin, and the increase in contaminant loading at the effluent discharge point will be negligible.
