First Nations Too New Age For Taseko Mines?

Taseko Mines Claims Prayer 'Taints' Review Process

Taseko Mines president Russell Hallbauer is getting desperate. He now claims that it's not fair that First Nations get to pray and perform traditional ceremonies at mining review panels. Talk about a clash of cultures!

Mr. Hallbauer makes a lot of money promoting mines. In 2009 he made $2.255 million providing "management and administrative services" to a number of different mines, including Taseko:

Compensation for 2009

Salary	$450,000.00
Bonus	$0.00
Restricted stock awards	$0.00
All other compensation	$0.00
Option awards $	$1,356,550.00
Non-equity incentive plan compensation	$225,000.00
Change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings	$223,960.00
Total Compensation	$2,255,510.00

Source: Forbes.com 

Hallbauer is playing the underdog card to the Federal Government which, by the way, is moving to strip federal environmental legislation that currently gets in the way of economic progress:

In a letter to federal environment minister Peter Kent, Taseko president Russell Hallbauer complained last November that the “fairness and objectivity” of that the first panel review was tainted by allowing a first nations activist to sit on the panel.

The panel gave “priority status to the interests and perspectives” of first nations by allowing aboriginal prayer ceremonies at the opening of the hearings, he wrote. And science was given short shrift when the 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 fall over simultaneously, symbolizing the death of the fish.”   Globe and Mail

Just Trying to Be Helpful

Taseko Mines president Hallbauer made other helpful suggestions as well, including:

• No more aboriginal members on review panels
• No drumming or aboriginal prayer ceremonies
• Spirituality of a place is not an aboriginal right

Hallbauer felt that allowing First Nations to be on panels, drum and be spiritual is just not cricket, and that they had the "effect of giving priority status to the interests and perspectives [of] aboriginal people".

That makes me wonder, if the people of Kamloops stood up and objected the proposed open pit just south of the city, would it be unfair to let them speak at a panel hearing in case it gave their perspectives a priority status?

I thought that was the point of speaking at the hearing, to have your voice heard. This is a democracy and the panel hearings are part of the democratic process. 

Folks who live close to a proposed mine site will obviously feel different effects (effects: acid mine drainage, toxic dust, constant noise, death of a lake, loss of a spiritual place) than the folks who own the mineral claim (effects: maintain membership in Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club and summer home in Gulf Islands).

My view is that aboriginal rights and environmental protection are two basic tenets of Canadian society. The Tsilhqot'in have every right to bring their views to the table and their rights and title to the land do indeed trump the rights of other players.

Not only that, as Stephen Harper drops environmental legislation like a hot potato and David Suzuki is branded a foreign-backed terrorist, First Nations effectively become the only capable protectors of the environment.

You don't have to be rich to be powerful!

Taseko Mines Sincere About New Mine Proposal?

It is very interesting that Taseko Mines is pondering a new mining proposal for Fish Lake.

After more than a decade of stating categorically (as recently as a week ago on a CBC phone in show) that the only option for their Fish Lake or Prosperity Mine, Taseko Mines has stated that it will look at other options.

I understand this from one point of view, they (or their investors) have spent about 100 million dollars to get this far. There's a lot of pissed off investors out there, and knowing the mining promotion industry this can't feel good to all the joes who sweat it out broadcasting "buy" alerts to their clients.

Ever do a search for "Taseko Mines"? What you get is a whole lot of investment advice (sales advice). Try it, it's amazing just how extensive the results are. Buried in there are other things like news and information, but the vast majority is about selling shares.

Most Taseko Mines search results are from stock promoters

How Sincere Is Taseko Mines?
So just how sincere is Taseko Mines in re-vamping their mine proposal?

My guess is that they want to a) shore up their stock price, and b)sell more shares so they can make share prices climb again. In my last post about Taseko Mines stock plummeting we saw that their stock price has gone all over the map in the last five years.

After all, Taseko has been completely steadfast in their assertion that there was only one way to develop this mine:

Throughout the more than 15 years that this project has been undergoing an environmental assessment, significant First Nations and public interest in preserving Fish Lake has been expressed. Notwithstanding the inherent difficulties of trying to preserve a lake in the midst/immediately adjacent to a plant site/ concentrator and open pit, Taseko has left no stone unturned in trying to find a way to preserve Fish Lake and develop the Project. …

It is not possible to preserve Fish Lake as a viable and functioning ecosystem while at the same time maximizing the full potential of the defined resource. From a mine planning perspective, in order to meet the objective of maximizing the full potential of the mineral resource at Prosperity, mine planners and decisions makers need to contemplate and prepare for the development of a pit that infringes on Fish Lake. (from West Coast Environmental Law website who got it from the Federal Review Panel report.)

So they have left no stone unturned (that's a geologists joke, by the way) in trying to avoid destroying the lake, but they missed one? Sounds like they are putting on their stock promoter's hat.

Marilyn Baptiste, chief of the Xeni Gwet'in band near the proposed mine, stated on a CBC open line show that they would not just jump on board if the lake were not to be destroyed, which is sensible. Who knows what the ramifications would be of another version of the mine.

Could they go underground? avoid open pit altogether? With gold over C$1300  per ounce you'd think that would be a possibility. A lot less tailings to generate acid mine drainage, too.

Here are the latest gold prices from Goldprice.org:

Excellent Article on Acid Mine Drainage and Alternatives to Tailings Ponds

Safe Haven | Contaminated Mining Environments: It's Better To Be Green

November 29, 2009

Contaminated Mining Environments: It's Better To Be Green
by Richard Mills

Richard Mills writes an excellent backgrounder on Acid Mine Drainage, its effects on the environment, and means of dealing with waste rock that avoids or greatly lessens the risk of releasing toxins into the environment.

Mills concludes with these words:

I'm not against mining. In fact, I'm very much in favor of resource extraction. Mining, fishing and logging all provide quality high paying jobs and these industries are some of only a handful that create new money, bringing prosperity and security to communities. But we inhabit this earth and call it our home. Clean water, breathable air and a land free of contamination have to be the legacy we leave our children.

I agree with this, mines need to be, but they don't belong anywhere there happens to be ore.

Tom Fletcher of BC Local News disses Federal Review Panel

Tom Fletcher writes for Black Publishing, and he recently wrote an article dissing the Federal Review Panel as simply keeping people in Ottawa in business:

...they rearrange the same scientific data into nice big binders in French and English, taking an Ottawa amount of time to do so... B.C. VIEWS: Ottawa make-work costs real jobs

According to Mr. Fletcher, "obstructionist aboriginals" and "professional environmentalists" simply don't want any more mines, pipelines or power projects. Funny, since the TNG is at work on a bioenergy project for the Chilcotin. As Fletcher says,

 They apparently want B.C.’s vast hinterland to depend entirely on taxpayer-funded welfare, supplemented with politically correct public works like hiking trails, all paid for with money borrowed against those of us still lucky enough to work in the private sector, our children and grandchildren.

I despise this sort of  special interest rhetoric, it's simply sycophantic, brown-nosing partisanship, it's Tom Fletcher employed by Black Publishing to dispense nonsense to the masses.

And it works: if you read the comments after his articles, his writings lead to frequent discussions demeaning aboriginal people and their beliefs and values.  Commentors are quick to criticize anyone in opposition to the mine as being anti-free enterprise and pro-welfare bum. Racism lies close to the surface in these discussions, and commentors use stereotypes to paint First Nations people as hypocritical and adverse to modernization.

http://www.bluecorncomics.com

Back up to speed on Taseko Mines' proposed Prosperity Mine

I have been without internet service, or at least any sort of consistent service, for the past month and a half.... I realized today what I'd been missing in reporting the situation with Taseko Mines' proposed Prosperity Mine in the Chilcotin.

So I'll go back and post what has happened in the past month and a half, starting with a request from the Federal Review Panel for more information on hydrology and First Nations information.

Briefly, the Panel requested the following:

1. Aquifers Identified for Use as a Source of Make-up Water

2. Ability of the aquifer to supply Make-up Water

The Panel wanted to confirm that there was only one aquifer under discussion. If you read may first post, the issue of aquifers came up when Taseko realized it might not have enough water at all times to prevent the mine tailings from generating acid waste. Their own original hydrology report showed that stream flows were, at best, inconsistent, and the mining company did not consider any contingencies should flows go low in years of low precipitation

The letter can be found here: href="http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/document-eng.cfm?document=39079">

The pdf response is here: http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/39192/39192E.pdf

Taseko Mines does not seem worried about proving the environmental safety of this proposed mine... their attitude is, let us build it first then we'll worry about making it safe!

From speaking with other minewatchers, I'd say that Taseko is a promotion company first, and mining company second.