Tsilhqot’in Territory, May 11, 2012:  The Tsilhqot’in Nation today reaffirms its position to the newly appointed “New” Prosperity Review Panel that the mine cannot be approved and that the entire credibility of Canada’s environmental assessment process hangs in the balance.  This version of the mine was already reviewed and rejected by the previous Panel, then called “Mine Development Plan #2”, because Environment Canada and the company itself testified that it posed a higher environmental risk than the previous plan and would likely contaminate Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) over time.  The mine design does not solve any of the significant impacts found by the previous Panel.

“Although the government did not appoint a First Nations member to the Panel, we recognize that three professionals have been appointed. We are confident that upon scrutiny, that the work undertaken by this new panel will completely confirm the previous panel’s findings that this alternative version of the mine poses even greater environmental risk,” said Tsilhqot’in National Government Tribal Chair Chief Joe Alphonse, “And will mean the same devastating impacts for our culture and our Tsilhqot’in way of life”.

“We trust this Panel will undoubtedly come to understand what it would mean for our culture to have a sacred place destroyed,” said Chief Marilyn Baptiste of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation.  “Yanah Biny and Nabas – where we have homes and graves – are still threatened.  Teztan Biny would be surrounded and contaminated by one of Canada’s biggest open-pit mining operations.”

Chief Alphonse: “The Tsilhqot’in have already proven our Aboriginal rights to this area in one of Canada’s longest court battles.  We won’t back down.  No government can stop us from reflecting on who we are and the importance that this area has for us – this isn’t residential school.”

Chief Baptiste:  “We are fighting for our cultural survival.  We see this as a major environmental threat to the headwaters of the Taseko Lake and River systems.  At stake is the wellbeing of one of British Columbia’s salmon runs.  The Tsilhqot’in have protected our headwaters and salmon for generations and we won’t stop now.  Keeping our waters clean and salmon safe is for everybody, not just the Tsilhqot’in.”

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires States to consult and cooperate in good faith with indigenous peoples in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories.  We expect nothing less as this proposal is a potential extinguishment of our Aboriginal Rights to hunt, trap and fish in a sensitive area at the headwaters of the Taseko River.

Media Contacts: Chief Marilyn Baptiste: 250-267-1401 or 250-394-7023

Chief Joe Alphonse: 250-305-8282 or 250-394-4212

Attachment: Ten facts that show why Prosperity Mine proposal cannot be approved

TŜILHQOT’IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

 

Ten facts that show why resubmitted Prosperity Mine proposal cannot be approved

1. The CEAA review panel process was very different from the BC EAO rubber-stamp decision. Its report found immitigable, devastating impacts to the local fish stocks and endangered grizzly populations, and to the existing and future rights of the Tsilhqot’in and its youth. Then Environment Minister Jim Prentice described the report’s findings as “scathing” and “probably the most condemning I have ever read.” 

2. The company knows its new option is worse than its first plan. TML’s V.P. Corporate Affairs, Brian Battison, was clear in his Mar. 22, 2010, opening presentation to the CEAA hearings, when he stated: “Developing Prosperity means draining Fish Lake.  We wish it were otherwise.  We searched hard for a different way. A way to retain the lake and have the mine.  But there is no viable alternative.  The lake and the deposit sit side by side.  It is not possible to have one without the loss of the other.”

3. The point was emphasised by TML’s VP of engineering, Scott Jones, who stated: “What happens to the water quality in Fish Lake, if you try and preserve that body of water with the tailings facility right up against it, is that over time the water quality in Fish Lake will become equivalent to the water quality in the pore water of the tailings facility, particularly when it’s close.”  

4. This proposal does not address the issues that led to the rejection of the first bid last year. Fish Lake will be affected by the toxic waste and eventually die, and it will be surrounded by a massive open pit mine and related infrastructure for decades.  The Tsilhqot’in people will not have access to their spiritual place, and the area will never be returned to the current pristine state.

It is not even new. It is “Mine Development Plan 2.”  TML states on page 20 of its project submission: “Option 2 is the basis for the New Prosperity design …The concepts that lead to the configuration of MDP Option 2 have been utilized to develop the project description currently being proposed.”

5. This option was looked at and rejected last year by the company, Environment Canada and the CEAA review panel. For example, page 65 of the review report states:  “The Panel agrees with the observations made by Taseko and Environment Canada that Mine Development Plans 1 and 2 would result in greater long-term environmental risk than the preferred alternative.”

6. The new $300 million in proposed spending is to cover the costs of relocating mine waste a little further away. There is nothing in the ‘new’ plan to mitigate all the environmental impacts identified in the previous assessment. TML states in its economic statement: “The new development design, predicated on higher long term prices for both copper and gold, would result in a direct increase in capital costs of $200 million to purchase additional mining equipment to relocate the tailings dam and to move the mine waste around Fish Lake to new locations. This redesign also adds $100 million in direct extra operating costs over the 20-year mine life to accomplish that task.” In fact, this new spending is actually $37 million less than the company said last year it would have to spend just to go with the option that it and the review panel agreed would be worse for the environment.

7.  The federal government is required under the Constitution to protect First Nations, which have been found to be under serious threat in this case, and is internationally committed to do so under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These duties are every bit as clear regarding this resubmitted proposal.

8.  Approving this mine would show the Environmental Assessment process is meaningless, and would demonstrate that governments are ignoring their obligations -  as the Assembly of First Nations  national chiefs-in-assembly made this crystal clear this summer in their resolution of support for the Tsilhqot’in.

9.  The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has opposed this project since it was first raised in 1995. It soundly rejected it again last year. It has no reason to support it now. Nor does Environment Canada, which, as the CEAA report noted last year, also found option 2 to be worse than the original bid.

10.  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.

JP Laplante, B.Sc., B.I.T.

Mining, Oil and Gas Manager

Tsilhqot’in National Government

253 Fourth Avenue North

Williams Lake BC V2G 4T4

Tel: 250-392-3918 (If Unanswered, Press 3, then 9)

Fax: 250-398-5798

Email: jlaplante@tsilhqotin.ca

www.tsilhqotin.ca

Toll Free: 1-877-512-2674

Sierra Club of BC - February 16, 2012

Xeni Gwet’in Chief Marilyn Baptiste noted Taseko Mines Ltd has also been distributing erroneous and misleading information to media in support of its own injunction aimed at gaining entry to the lands to build its roads and test sites.  “It has questioned our respect for the law, but the reality is the Tsilhqot’in Nation has worked with and through the legal system to defend our rights and positions and continue to place our expectations on the law and the Canadian Constitution to defend our rights,” said Chief Baptiste.

“We continue to seek to avoid confrontation and to work through the courts to ensure that illegally granted provincial permits are not used to allow extensive damage in pursuit of an option that has already been found by the company and Environment Canada to be worse than the preferred option, which itself was rejected by Ottawa based on the “scathing” and “condemning” findings of a Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s review panel.

Chief Alphonse said: “It is also important to note that we were prepared to talk with the company about moving forward - if it assured us that it had not already chosen a new plan and would be proceeding with it regardless of anything we might say. The company did not provide such an assurance.”

The TNG and the TML injunction applications will be heard starting on Monday, November 28 at 10 am in the British Columbia Supreme Court, in Vancouver (Hornby St. & Nelson St.), and supporters will gather outside the court beginning at 9am, with Chief Baptiste in attendance. 

Chief Baptiste: “We encourage all peoples to join us outside the court with drums and prayers, and to do the same in your respective territories wherever you may be.  This is for the protection of all our lands and waters.”

Media contact:

 Chief Joe Alphonse 250-394-4212

 Chief Marilyn Baptiste 250-267-1401

Pacific Free Press - October 19, 2011

The Prosperity Mine issue has been re-opened with a vengeance!

by FONVHello All Friends of Friends of the Nemaiah Valley: At this moment Tsilhqotin National Government (TNG) Tribal Chair Joe Alphonse, Tsilhqot’in Chiefs Marilyn Baptiste and Frances Laceese, along with Grand Chief Stuart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, are in Ottawa. They are accompanied by Councillor Roger William and TNG staff and expect to be joined by Regional Chief Jody Wilson-Raybould of the National Assembly of First Nations.
Federal officials meet with Tsilhqot’in leaders and band members at Yanah Biny/Little Fish Lake earlier this month (Nate Einbinder)

They will be holding a Press conference in the Parliamentary Press Gallery following meetings with federal ministers and deputy ministers, as well as staff of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, as they try to prevent any further time and money being spent on this very flawed proposal.

TNG News Release Here: cnw.ca/WG7X

Once again, the Tsilhqot’in people find themselves fighting this battle despite the fact that the federal government has found this mine to be unacceptable on many grounds and that it has been consistently opposed by the Tslhqot’in people and non-government organizations like FONV and an overwhelming portion of the public,
Taseko Mines Ltd. (TML) is trumpeting that the new proposal will “save” Teztan Biny/Fish Lake, will answer the concerns the original CEAA Panel had with regard to grizzly bears, and will create many billions of dollars revenue for the government.

The truth lies elsewhere. The “New” Prosperity Mine is nothing more than Alternative #2 that has already been determined to be environmentally worse than the original proposal. Taseko itself said that it was worse and the Panel agreed. This is well documented. Alternative #2 will destroy Yanah Biny/Little Fish Lake, Fish Creek and the entire Nabas region as a viable, functioning ecosystem. It will eliminate 81% of Teztan Biny’s spawning habitat.

Furthermore,at the end of the proposed life of the mine in 21 years, 50% of the resource (gold and copper) will still be in the ground, much of it under Teztan Biny. At that point, Teztan Biny will have to be destroyed to get at the ore and this will then become a 33 year mine. Taseko admitted as much during the last round of hearings:

“As commodity prices increase, as the potential pit increases, it increases out, radially out towards the lake. So that as commodity prices increase…..you reach a point where you actually impact Fish Lake and you lose Fish Lake….And then maximizing the extraction of the resource, you’ve lost the lake.” (Scott Jones, V.P. Engineering, TML).

New claims by Taseko of huge economic benefits appear to be based on highly speculative estimates of growth in which indirect spending accounts for over 50% of the projected benefits. We became used to this from this company during the last go ‘round when wild and ever increasing claims went unexamined by government and were finally punctured by economist Dr. Marvin Shaffer. Neither do Taseko figures take into account the very real economic losses that will ensue to a growing wilderness tourism industry and the potentially huge losses to our fisheries as the mine is located at the Fraser River headwaters.

A legacy of this mine will be tragic cultural loss for Tsilhqot’in people and social disorder in the form of 500 and more miners imposed on a small and remote community. In 33 years most of the people who will then be “allowed” to return to the area for the food resources and cultural practices they have carried on there for millenia will have joined their ancestors, some of whom are buried where this mine will be.

The new mine does nothing to mitigate the loss of grizzly habitat, nor does it respect the rights of Tsilhqot’in people whose rights and title case was appealed a year ago. A decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal is imminent. This may grant title to this area or, at the least, confirm the aboriginal rights that Justice Vickers found pertained here almost exactly four years ago.  Meanwhile, Taseko continues to ask for road building and tree clearing permits all around Teztan Biny before any review commences.

The federal government has just announced severe cuts to the CEAA under a new round of economic restraint. Does it make sense to now embark on a costly enterprise to re-examine a mine proposal that has already been determined to be environmentally unacceptable by this same Agency and by this same government?

It is clearly long past time for this company, Taseko Mines Ltd., to call it a day. They have imposed great stress and hardship on Tsilhqot’in people. They have cost the public treasury millions of dollars in repeated attempts to push the mine through, all the time being encouraged by a provincial government whose own environmental review process has been proved to be little more than a rubber stamp to resource projects.

By November 7th. the CEAA will decide whether to grant a full environmental review – once again – to this project. We ask you to join us and other environmental groups across Canada in condemning this mine proposal by calling your MP and MLA and demanding an end to this charade.

OCTOBER 19, 2011
David Williams, President
Friends of the Nemaiah Valley

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/9976-return-of-the-fish-lake-gold-miners.html