CANADA’S VALUABLE FRESH WATER IS NOT FOR DUMPING TOXIC WASTES

For release on: Thursday, 10 July 2008

OTTAWA – An emerging coalition of conservation, Aboriginal, and social justice organizations is calling on the federal government to immediately stop the practice of allowing mining companies to use Canada’s lakes as dumping grounds for toxic mine wastes.

It is illegal under the Fisheries Act to dump toxic material into fish-bearing waters. However, in 2002, the government amended the Act’s Metal Mining Effluent Regulation (MMER) to allow lakes and other freshwater bodies to be re-classified as “tailings impoundment areas,” thereby allowing mining companies to get around the general prohibition.

Environment Canada announced that, under the MMER, at least 11 mines in Canada are seeking permission to destroy healthy natural water bodies with their mine waste. Eight of these mining projects are being processed in 2008. This is in addition to two lakes that are already being destroyed under Schedule 2 of the regulation.

Aboriginal groups are concerned that the federal government is developing environmental policies and amending regulations in a way that will have a dramatic impact on Aboriginal and treaty rights. Changes to the MMER and additional listings under Schedule 2 are being made on a mine-by-mine basis without meaningful input or consultation with the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Since the MMER is a federal regulation, these changes will affect Aboriginal peoples across Canada. The groups say there should be national consultation.

“By inviting mining companies to come onto the traditional ancestral homelands of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples and consciously allowing them to destroy lakes and waters with toxic tailings, the advisors to the Prime Minister and Cabinet are ignoring the teachings of Aboriginal peoples and the deep respect we have for the land, waters, and living forms,” says Roger Hunka, of the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council. “It is an insult to Aboriginal peoples. We, like all Canadians, value a healthy environment. Today we’re telling government to stop transgressing against Canadian values; stop using lakes as dump sites for toxic mining wastes.”

As well, government is proposing to add new processing facilities, such as hydrometallurgical plants, which are not currently included in the MMER. “Hydromet” is a largely experimental technology that uses high heat and a variety of chemicals to extract minerals from ores and, in the process, produces a variety of noxious compounds that are not regulated by the MMER. Environment Canada is considering allowing wastes from these plants, such as the one at Sandy Pond in Newfoundland, to be similarly dumped into fish-bearing waters.

The coalition is not trying to stop mining in Canada. It is simply asking that government require mining companies to use existing technologies for managing mine waste, or invest in new technologies and stop using lakes as tailings dumps.

“Prior to 2002, mining companies in Canada were required to protect surface and ground water using existing technologies, even if these were more costly than simply dumping waste into a lake,” says Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada. “It is inexcusable that they should be allowed to destroy lakes in Canada when they know that they would not be allowed to do so in the United States or other developed countries.”

Allowing mining companies to use lakes as waste dump sites amounts to a massive subsidy to the mining industry at the expense of publicly owned fresh water resources; this to an industry that made a net profit of over $80 billion in North America in 2007.

“More and more mining companies are proposing to use lakes as tailings dumps because it is profitable for them,” says John Werring, of the David Suzuki Foundation. “They can save millions of dollars in operating costs by doing this. But is that sufficient reason to destroy our treasured natural resources? We thought that in this day and age, companies would want to be more environmentally responsible, not less so.”

“Coming from a government that has committed to a National Water Strategy, these changes to Schedule 2 are especially counterproductive,” says Celeste Côté, of Sierra Club Canada.

The coalition agrees that freshwater ecosystems are far more valuable in the long run than any mined resource and should be protected. The coalition believes that dumping toxic wastes into natural water bodies is inherently unsustainable and contradicts the government’s stated commitment to sustainable development, and that Schedule 2 should be repealed in the interest of all Canadians.

“Allowing a lake to be turned into a dump site for a private company is nothing short of privatizing a public resource that is essential to life. Contaminating a water body will have devastating consequences on entire watersheds at a time when the world is dealing with a fresh water crisis,” says Maude Barlow, of the Council of Canadians.

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Read the Media Backgrounder

Contacts:

Roger Hunka, Dir. Intergovernmental Affairs
Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council
Truro Heights, NS Ph: 902-895-2982
mapc@eastlink.ca

Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of
Canadians, Ottawa, Ph: 613-233-4487 x 249
dpenner@canadians.org

Dr. Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator,
MiningWatch Canada, Ottawa, 613-569-3439
catherine@miningwatch.ca

John Werring, Salmon Conservation Biologist,
David Suzuki Fdn, Vancouver, 604-732-4228,
ext. 245, jwerring@davidsuzuki.org

Celeste Côté, Sierra Club Canada, Ottawa,
Ph: 613-241-4611 x.233; celestec@sierraclub.ca

Contact info for others signing onto this press release:

Maggie Paquet, Citizens’ Stewardship Coalition,
Port Alberni, BC, Ph: 250-723-8802,
maggiepaquet5@shaw.ca

Brennain Lloyd, Northwatch, North Bay, ON
Ph: 705-497-0373, northwatch@onlink.net

Bathurst Sustainable Development, Bathurst,
NB, Ph: 506-548-2106, rosewood@nbnet.nb.ca

Linda Sheppard Whalen, Ph.D., Centre for

Longterm Environmental Action in Nf/Ld
(CLEAN), St. John’s, NF, Ph: 709-722-8159
clean_hq@yahoo.com

Arlene Kwasniak, Calgary

Jody Lownds, Friends of the Earth, Ottawa,
613-241-0085 ext. 32, jlownds@foecanada.org

Jean Paul L'Italien, Comité en développement
durable du Nord-ouest du Nouveau-Brunswick,
Edmundston, 506 735-6012, litalien@umce.ca

Amy Crook, BC Program Manager, Centre for
Science in Public Participation (CSP2), Victoria,
Ph: 250-721-3627, acrook@csp2.org

Daniel Green, Club Sierra Canada Campagnes
au Québec, et co-président Société pour Vaincre
la Pollution (SVP), Montreal, T: 514-844-5477,
greentox@total.net