Mt Polley Tailings "pond" disaster in BC Interior [View all]

First Nations chief: Warning about B.C. tailings pond ‘ignored’

Concerns raised in a report three years before a massive tailings pond breached at the Mount Polley gold and copper mine in central British Columbia were “basically ignored,” said a First Nations leader whose territory has been soiled by the disaster.

Bev Sellers, chief of the Xatsull First Nation, also known as the Soda Creek Indian Band, said many members of her band were in tears when they learned of Monday’s release of a slurry of contaminated water and mine waste into several local waterways. “Because they know the destruction that’s going to happen from this breach. It’s just a real sad day,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

The breach of the earthen dam, at one end of the four-kilometre long pond, left a 45-metre wide long swath of muck the length of several football fields through a thick forested area near the open-pit mine southeast of Quesnel, B.C.

The release of 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of silt into Polley Lake prompted drinking water warnings for Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, Cariboo Creek and the Quesnel River up to its intersection with the Fraser River.

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Gerald MacBurney, a foreman at the dam for seven years before he recently quit, claimed the dam was breached last May and that weakened the whole system.

“When you get a breach, there’s more than one spot it breached. It weakened the whole system,” he said in an interview. “And that’s where it popped, right where it was breached. … I knew it was going to burst.”

An emotional Kynock flatly denied the claim. “The dam has never failed before,” he told the crowd.

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http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/warnings-about-b-c-tailings-pond-growth-ignored-before-collapse/

Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach: helicopter flyover
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-tailings-pond-breach-helicopter-flyover-1.2727531

Bill Bennett, Minister of Energy and Mines, responds to Mt. Polley Mine Incident
http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/2014/08/bill-bennett-minister-of-energy-and-mines-responds-to-mt-polley-mine-incident.html

Mount Polley Mine tailings water 'very close' to drinking quality, company says
Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch says he would drink water from tailings pond that leaked into rivers

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-tailings-water-very-close-to-drinking-quality-company-says-1.2727776

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A 4 kilometer long "pond". When I hear the word pond, I think of something much smaller than a lake. How can they get away with calling a massive 4 kilometer long body of water a “pond”? It makes it sound like the “breach”… another good word… is just a little thing, nothing like a dam bursting with catastrophic results for rivers, lakes, wildlife and communities downstream.

Also, the president of the company said he'd totally drink the water in his tailings "pond". I bet he wouldn't drink it every day for the rest of his life like the people who live downstream will have to do, considering this is a sample of what is in there:

Mount Polley mine on-site disposal in 2013:

Arsenic (and its compounds): 406 tonnes
Lead (and its compounds) 177 tonnes
Nickel (and its compounds) 326 tonnes
Vanadium (except when in an alloy): 5,047 tonnes
Zinc (and its compounds): 2,169 tonnes
Cadmium (and its compounds): 6 tonnes
Cobalt (and its compounds): 475 tonnes
Phosphorus (total): 41,640 tonnes
Copper (and its compounds): 18,413 tonnes
Antimony (and its compounds) 14 tonnes
Manganese (and its compounds): 20,988 tonnes
Mercury (and its compounds): 3 tonnes
Selenium (and its compounds): 46 tonnes