Keeping Watch: Prosperity Mine - May 11, 2012

Helping oppose Taseko Mines’ proposed Prosperity Mine in the Southwest Chilcotin.

Ten Reasons Why *New* Prosperity Mine Proposal Is Not Acceptable

10. Plenty of Non-Fish Mine Proposals In The Stream Already 
There are many other more worthy projects to be pursued – the vast majority of which, if not all will require working with aboriginal communities. Natural Resources Canada estimates there is $350 billion-$500 billion worth of such potential projects in Canada.  Governments, industry and investors do not need to go backwards by pushing this confrontational proposal and rebuffing efforts by First Nations to find a way to create a better mining system that would benefit everyone in the long run.

http://prosperity-mine-vs-fish-lake.blogspot.ca/2012/05/prosperity-mine-more-things-change.html

Williams Lake Tribune - May 9, 2012

The review panel for the federal environmental assessment of the proposed New Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine Project has been established.

On Wednesday Peter Kent, federal minister of the environment and minister responsible for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, announced the three panel members and the panel’s terms of reference for the environmental assessment.

Kent has appointed Dr. Bill Ross as the panel chair, as well as Dr. George Kupfer and Dr. Ron Smyth as panel members.

Reacting to the announcement, Tsilhqot’in National Government Chair and Tl’etinqox (Anaham) Chief Joe Alphonse says the panel guidelines have scaled back the obligations around aboriginal rights.

“That would initially be a point of concern for myself. I think we have the largest right and title case ever won in B.C. and in Canada and those are issues the federal government has to take very seriously, over and above the scientific-related thing the panel has to do,” Alphonse says, adding the federal government has a duty to protect aboriginal rights.

Aboriginal rights will be something his government will be demanding and pushing for, he insists.

While he’s disappointed a First Nations member with all the right qualifications was not appointed to the panel, Alphonse says he’s confident the panel is legitimate and will arrive at the right decision.

Brian Battison, Taseko Mines Ltd.’s vice-president of corporate affairs, says Kent’s announcements are important steps in a process that’s unfolding.

“The terms of reference look to be consistent with the minister’s commitments. There’s a 12-month process, the review is focused on what has changed in the project, i.e. preserving Fish Lake, and the process is relying on the work done on the previous environmental assessment to the extent possible,” Battison says, adding Taseko does not intend to comment on the make-up of the panel.

According to a news release, Ross is a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary in the Faculty of Environmental Design. He has focused most of his research on the professional practice of environmental assessment and has extensive expertise on cumulative effects assessment.

He has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Manitoba and a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University.

Ross has developed training, taught and advised on many aspects of environmental assessment in Canada and internationally.

In addition to teaching postgraduate students, he has delivered training courses to further the practice of environmental assessment in many countries. In 1994, he headed the Canadian Mission to the Middle East to determine environmental assessment capabilities and needs as part of the Multilateral Peace Process.

He is the founding president of the Western and Northern Canada Affiliate of the International Association for Impact Assessment. He has chaired the Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency for the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories for five years and has worked with the four aboriginal groups involved for a decade. In 2009, Ross was the winner of the Rose-Hulman Award from the International Association for Impact assessment.

The news release says Ross has considerable experience as a member of environmental assessment review panels in Alberta and British Columbia. He chaired the federal review panel for the Oldman River Dam and he served on the joint review panels for the EnCana Shallow Gas Infill Development Project and the Joslyn North Mine Project. He participated on the federal panels reviewing the twinning of the Trans Canada Highway in Banff National Park and the CP Rail Rogers Pass Project and was a member of the joint federal-provincial review panel established for the Alberta-Pacific Pulp Mill. He was an advisor on cumulative environmental effects to the Cheviot Coal Mine Review Panel in Alberta.

Kupfer is a consultant focusing on community consultation, conflict resolution and mediation related to social and environmental issues and industrial development. He has a B.A. from Seattle Pacific University, as well as a Master’s and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington. He taught at the University of Alberta for 15 years, before establishing his own company, Fresh Start Limited. Dr. Kupfer primarily works in western Canada and lives in Sidney, British Columbia.

Kupfer has facilitated many community consultation and stakeholder engagement initiatives related to industrial projects and their impacts. He has led multi-stakeholder consultations on drilling applications, gas pipeline developments, sour gas issues, transmission line route selection, on the relationship of the environment and the economy, and forest conservation strategies. He facilitated a multi-stakeholder review of the Alberta environmental impact assessment process and on developing agreements between First Nations, Métis and the government in the Wood Buffalo Region.

For a short time he was the public consultation advisor to the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and afterwards assisted in a number of board consultation and mediation projects. He has facilitated Crown consultation processes with First Nations for the federal and Alberta governments and advised the National Energy Board on the development of an internal aboriginal consultation process and on dealing with pipeline emergencies. He has worked with First Nations and Métis, industry, individuals, communities and government departments in Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.

Kupfer has served on numerous environmental assessment panels, specifically related to water management issues. He was recently a member of the joint federal-provincial panel reviewing a run-of-the-river hydroelectric project on the Peace River near Dunvegan, Alta. He was also a member of panels reviewing water management projects for the Pine Coulee and Little Bow/Highwood projects in Alberta, and for reviews of the Jackpine and Horizon oil sand developments in northern Alberta. He managed the review panel of the Alberta-Pacific Pulp Mill and served as social impacts advisor to the Oldman River Dam Panel. Until recently he was a member of the Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project Review Panel until the project was withdrawn.

Smyth is a professional geologist and independent consultant. He holds a Ph.D. in geology from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He spent most of his career in government geological survey organizations; first with the Newfoundland Geological Survey where he held senior positions in geological mapping and mineral resource assessments from 1972 to 1982. He joined the British Columbia Geological Survey in 1982 as a mineral land use specialist and prepared regional assessments of mineral and coal potential for land and resource management planning processes.

Smyth was director and chief geologist of the British Columbia Geological Survey from 1984-2002 and was the principal advisor to the B.C. government on geological matters relating to minerals and coal. He has broad experience in the application of geology in the assessment of proposed new mines. He was a scientific advisor to the B.C. Mine Development Review Process in the 1980s and was responsible for a team of geological experts that provided scientific input to assessments of proposed new metal and coal mines. He also held the position of chief science officer for the Offshore Oil and Gas Team, B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources from 2002 to 2008. In this position he was the government’s expert on the geology and resource potential of the Pacific offshore basins and was the Ministry’s chief advisor on science issues related to offshore energy development. He interacted with a range of stakeholders, including First Nations, non-governmental organizations, industry, academia, and the public.

Smyth was an adjunct professor, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria and was co-chair of the University of Victoria-Ministry of Energy and Mines Research Partnership Committee from 2004 to 2008. He has been a member of numerous scientific advisory boards. He resides in Victoria, B.C.

The terms of reference, the guidelines, as well as additional information on the project, are available in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Registry on the agency website at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca, under reference # 11-05-63928.

http://www.wltribune.com/news/150819935.html#storyComments

Williams Lake Tribune - May 7, 2012

Taseko president Russell Hallbauer’s letter advising federal Environment Minister Peter Kent how to conduct the environmental assessment process for the New Prosperity mine proposal number 2 shouldn’t come as any surprise.

The last time around Taseko wanted panelist Nalaine Morin recused because, although she is qualified in the mining field, Taseko claimed she would be biased due to her role with the Tahltan Heritage Resources Environmental Assessment Team. They objected to the showing of the documentary Blue Gold and I was told there were complaints about the drumming ceremony. Taseko also didn’t like children presenting a play. Let’s be clear.  Mr. Hallbauer and spokesman Brian Battison are using whatever means they have to get the mine up and running asap.  That’s their job and they’re good at it.  There are a few problems.  One, the review process only studies the environmental damage. Two, the minister weighs the economic benefits against the environmental impacts. And three, the social impact on the people, who will be most affected by the location of the mine, gets short shrift. Proponents are willing to gamble that nothing will go sideways (gold/copper prices, unexpected environmental issues) to interfere with the plan. But people’s lifestyles will be affected by the mine’s very existence, no matter how the stars align, so why shouldn’t those concerns be weighed in the review process?

Taseko wants a “scientific” decision. Don’t we all. The question is, whose science?

Mine officials want everyone to believe they have all the answers, but during the first review a number of scientific experts found otherwise. Reminds me of the climate-change debate — who is right, your scientist or mine?  Even more reason for the review panel to hear all sides of the issue.

***

Different subject. I haven’t figured out how shifting city property taxes from industry to residential will help our economic wheels go around. Won’t it just mean that residents will have a little less money to spend locally?

Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.

http://www.wltribune.com/opinion/150513935.html

Williams Lake Tribune - May 2, 2012

Letter to minister from company ‘disrespectful,’ says the TNG, but Taseko says it just wants a fair review process.

Concerns about First Nations participation in the upcoming New Prosperity Mine Project federal environmental assessment, voiced in a letter by Taseko Mines Ltd., contains descriptions that are ignorant and disrespectful, says Xeni Gwet’in (Nemiah Valley) Chief Marilyn Baptiste.

Written by president and CEO Russell Hallbauer to Environment Minister Peter Kent, the Nov. 23 letter raises complaints about the previous panel hearings for the original Prosperity Mine project proposal.

First Nations drumming and singing, school children presenting a play involving “dying fish,” or the showing of a “sensational” video about saving Fish Lake, don’t belong in an environmental review process, Hallbauer writes.

He also protests that issues of spirituality were raised in the panel’s final report, and suggests if the company believes the panel for the new review is biased, it may pursue court action.

Baptiste says if spirituality is not taken into account, then government and industry are still stuck in the 1800s.

She says that drumming and prayers are always done at meetings, gatherings, general assemblies, and elders meetings, so why should the panel hearings be any different?

“Will they go back to outlawing our drumming and our ceremonies?” she asks.

Taseko’s letter surfaced this week, after a freedom of information request was made by the Tsilhqot’in National Government’s lawyer.

While she is disappointed with the letter, Baptiste adds it’s unfortunate because the TNG has asked the government’s agencies to advise them every time they hear from Taseko.

“I’m sure they are advising the company about every time we talk to them. Why aren’t they doing the same for us?” Baptiste says, alleging that some of the changes that have been made to the environmental assessment guidelines have been made in favour of the company.

Kent says he responded to Taseko’s letter, writing that he would forward the company’s letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

He says, however, that he has not given CEAA any instructions to proceed with the changes requested by the proponent.

He also says he has “not instructed CEAA to amend the criteria used in the first panel review.”

Responding to the negative feedback the letter is receiving now that it’s been made public, Taseko’s vice president of corporate affairs Brian Battison says he wonders if people understand the intent of the letter and what the company was trying to accomplish by writing it.

“We want the environmental review process to be fair and balanced, and we want it to be consistent with the law and the requirements of the law. An environmental process has a very specific purpose, described in law, and an assessment of spirituality is not part of that legal requirement.”

Spirituality is a subject that should be discussed and considered by government as part of the Crown’s obligation and duty to consult First Nations. That is where those discussions should take place, Battison suggests.

Taseko isn’t against drumming, praying or discussing spirituality, he adds, but insists those activities don’t belong in the assessment process.

“An environmental assessment doesn’t consider the socio-economic factors, but a decision made by cabinet or the minister can take into consideration other information, besides that gathered during the assessment. I think people think the assessment is the decision-making process, but it is not exclusively. It’s only a component of the decision making process.”

Battison says there’s a limited role for spiritual considerations; however, he says those considerations are not about the spirituality of a place, but rather where a place has cultural heritage significance for various things.

“If a place is described as having cultural heritage significance it may be because it may include spiritual use, but the significance of it is as it relates to cultural heritage. That may be where archeology or signs of habitation have been discovered.”

By saving Fish Lake, with its new mine design and mitigation measures, Taseko is considering the cultural heritage significance of the area, he says.

In the letter, Hallbauer also makes a request that all of the panel members should be seen to be unbiased in respect to all matters before the panel.

“The act says that panel members shall have no bias so we expect that to be the case. That’s a reasonable expectation under the law,” Battison says.

Leaders from the TNG, meanwhile, are hoping members of the previous panel are going to participate in the New Prosperity review because it would give continuity to the process.

“We have been pressing and advising government that they have to have the same panel if they want to only review the changes to this alternative proposal. If it’s not the same panel, it should be at least one or two members to be a sufficient review,” Baptiste says.

Independent MLA Bob Simpson says he’s met with Battison a number of times asking if Taseko can find a different way to relate to the Tsilhqot’in, so he’s surprised that the company wrote the letter, knowing it would be eventually be made public.

“There’s a lack of inherent logical integrity in the letter about spirituality, culture and heritage. If you look at the New Prosperity project overview under the Fish Lake part, where Taseko mentions that the Tsilhqot’in ascribe a strong spiritual relationship with the island on Fish Lake, then why would they ask that spirituality be removed from the environmental assessment process?” Simpson asks.

The First Nations relationship to the land, whether non-First Nations understand it or buy it or not, doesn’t matter, because all of the First Nations cultural heritage and traditional uses are all infused with spirituality, he says.

“That’s why that becomes a critical component and to try and negate that under threat of legal challenge is where I struggle because what they’re signalling is if they get a “no” again, they’re going to challenge it in court,” Simpson says.

http://www.wltribune.com/news/149931185.html

Canada.com - May 1, 2012

 

Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations: “The actions of (Taseko Mines Ltd.) are completely outrageous.”

Photograph by: Mike Deal

OTTAWA — The bid by a Vancouver company to eliminate consideration of native spirituality and even prohibit aboriginal children’s plays at a federal environmental review hearing is “completely outrageous” and runs counter to the direction of many major companies seeking to work with First Nations, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said Tuesday.

Atleo was commenting on the disclosure of a letter sent by Taseko Mines Ltd. to Environment Minister Peter Kent in November that called for measures to eliminate possible pro-aboriginal bias in a pending review of the company’s gold-copper mine in the B.C. interior.

“The actions of the company are completely outrageous,” said Atleo. “I know increasingly companies are ‘getting’ the need to recognize and respect First Nations rights and title, so this isn’t the way forward.”

Atleo said he supports the position of aboriginal leaders around Williams Lake, B.C., who voiced outrage Monday over the letter that was made public by independent B.C. legislator Bob Simpson.

“Those notions go against the work to create and build trust, to develop respect and respectful relationships,” Atleo said in an interview.

He said the company’s objection to a children’s play in a previous federal panel review, which led to Ottawa rejecting the mine application in 2010, was particularly troubling.

“It’s their future that’s at stake here.”

Atleo said First Nations people can’t be separated from their spiritual connection to land and culture, and he said rituals such as drumming and prayers before hearings should be a natural part of the process.

“This is how our people transmit our culture, through language, though prayer, through songs, through ceremony, between generations.”

Vancouver-based Taseko failed in its 2010 bid to get federal approval after a “scathing” federal review that made repeated references to the spiritual importance of the land around the mine site and especially Fish Lake, which the company wanted to turn into a tailing pond.

Taseko President Russell Hallbauer’s letter in November asked Kent to not permit aboriginal prayer ceremonies at the hearings, and he also said children’s plays should be banned.

The previous panel allowed “a group of Kindergarten children to present a play, in which the children wore fish cut-outs on their heads, moved around the floor, and then all fell over simultaneously, symbolizing the death of the fish,” Hallbauer wrote.

Allowing opening prayers wasn’t “appropriate” and a “sensational” anti-project film also shouldn’t be part of a process that is supposed to be “objective and fact-based,” he wrote.

And the new panel, which has yet to be named, “does not have any right to attribute significance to the spirituality of a place per se”, he added.

The company also complained that one of the three panel members, metallurgist and former environmental mining supervisor Nalaine Morin, was a member of a First Nations organization in the area that was opposed to the project.

Brian Battison, Taseko’s vice president of corporate affairs, argued Monday that spirituality isn’t part of federal environmental review legislation and shouldn’t be considered.

He said the company is objecting to children’s plays, films and prayers because such events bring too much emotion into the hearings.

“The whole process moves so far beyond the true facts that it makes it very, very difficult for everybody, I think, including the panel, to not try to consciously or unconsciously reflect all of that in their findings,” Battison said.

“And what happens is the science and the facts get lost, and if they don’t get lost they get overwhelmed by these circumstances.”

A spokesman for Kent said Monday the letter would not change the terms of reference for the new panel, which hasn’t yet been named.

http://www.canada.com/life/Atleo+calls+native+spirituality+from+mine+hearings+outrageous/6549407/story.html

Prince George Local News - April 27, 2012

By Jeff Sargeant
Prince George, B.C.

As a public relations war continues between Taseko Mines and the Tsilhqot’in First Nation, the mining company says efforts to discuss its proposed New Prosperity project have fallen on deaf ears.

Taseko Vice-President of Corporate Affairs Brian Battison says while the Tsilhqot’in continue to voice public concerns about the long-term health of Fish Lake, the company’s new environmental assessment application ensures it will be saved from development.

“That’s no longer the plan, we’re able to save Fish Lake primarily because of the higher price for gold and copper that can sustain and help us carry that additional 300 million dollars,” said Battison.

Battison says the company has continuously tried to sit down with Tsilhqot’in leadership to discuss their concerns but they have refused to talk.

Taseko’s New Prosperity mine, south of Williams Lake, is currently undergoing a second federal review after its first was rejected over environmental concerns.

http://hqprincegeorge.com/news/local/news/Local/12/04/27/Taseko-Insists-New-Prosperity-Safe/