Taseko Prosperity Mine Not a Done Deal

Chief Alphonse Sees Dim Future For Taseko's Prosperity Mine

BY CHIEF JOE ALPHONSE, 

VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 5, 2012

Re: New Prosperity will live up to its name, Sept. 20, and responsible mining begins before opening and ends long after closure, Sept. 27

The Prosperity Mine proposal and its prospects are far from a done deal.

First, the proposal is one which the company itself, and Environment Canada, initially claimed would be worse for the environment than the original plan that was soundly rejected by the federal government in 2010.

Since then, the company has tried to revise that claim. Earlier this summer, the company submitted an environmental-impact statement (EIS) which was rejected by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) and the relevant government ministries. The company received 250 criticisms dealing with major inaccuracies, omissions, failures to address issues outlined for it in February, and poor, often unreadable, drafting.

The above are all matters of verifiable public record.

Mr. Russell Hallbauer, president and CEO of Taseko Mines Ltd., says these issues have now all been addressed, but that claim has been made before and proved wrong. CEAA and other parties will review the new EIS and even if it is accepted as the basis for hearings, it will then have to stand up to public scrutiny. So will its economic claims and feasibility studies. We have analyses raising detailed specific problems with these economic reports, which at the hearings stage will not so easily be dismissed with platitudes.

Signed

Chief Joe Alphonse Tribal chair, Tsilhqot'in National Government

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 reaches deal with B.C. first nation to conduct tests at site

Taseko reaches deal with B.C. first nation to conduct tests at site

Taseko Mines and the Tsilhqot’in Nation have agreed to a compromise that will let Taseko do some work on the site of its proposed $1-billion New Prosperity mine without interference.
Last October, the province of British Columbia granted Taseko permits allowing it to carry out work on the property near Williams Lake.
The Tsilhqot’in objected to the provincial permits, saying the first nation had not been consulted or accommodated — a legal requirement — before the permits were issued

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Taseko+reaches+deal+with+first+nation+conduct+tests+site/6221462/story.html#ixzz1nkbreZCe

New Prosperity work program to commence February 28, 2012

From PRWeb News Release:

New Prosperity work program to commence February 28, 2012New Prosperity work program to commence February 28, 2012

VANCOUVER, Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Taseko Mines Limited (TSX:TKO) (NYSE: TGB) (Amex: TGB) ("Taseko" or the "Company") announces that the temporary injunction preventing the Company from undertaking routine exploration work on the New Prosperity site pending a BC Supreme Court Judicial Review, has been vacated by court order.
On February 28, 2012 Taseko will commence a reduced scope of work that will be undertaken for the sole purposes of obtaining information required for the Federal environmental assessment of the proposed New Prosperity Project. On this basis, the parties have agreed not to further pursue existing legal actions.
For further information on Taseko, please see the Company's website www.tasekomines.com.
Russell HallbauerPresident and CEO

Why New Taseko Prosperity Mine Proposal Still Bad Idea

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.TŜILHQOT’IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Map of Prosperity MIne location

The map below shows the location of Fish Lake (Teztan Biny in Tsilhqot'in) and the ore deposit. The deposit is under the pattern of trails you can see just to the northwest of the lake.


View Fish Lake on Google Maps in a larger map


Click on the lake and it will open in Google Maps, or use the zoom and pan arrows to look around. Just to the west of here is the First Nations community of Xeni Gwet'in (pronounced "hunny guteen" more or less). The mountains to the west are the Coast Range, and you'll see how close to the end of Bute Inlet via the Hamathko River.


Amazing country. I planted trees in Bute Inlet several years in a row back in the 1980's.

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:

Taseko Mines Stock Price Plummets

Well I have to feel a bit sorry for the shareholders of Taseko Mines after seeing this:

That says it all, doesn't it? I thought this looked pretty bad, but notice it's just this week.

Here is a five year stock chart for Taseko:

Doesn't look so bad really. They've been up and down before.  The discussion now from the business community is around BC not being mining friendly.  My thought is that this is a good message to the mining industry and business in general 

• the land has value all on its own and a mine doesn't necessarily mean a positive return to society, and
• First Nations people count, their opinions and their values count.

Interesting, too, that the Mount Milligan mine has gotten the OK from the federal government. To me that is balance. They say the Mt Milligan mine is designed to minimize damage to the environment, whereas the Prosperity Mine never was. 

Ecological Economics

There has been some good articles on Ecological Economics lately. Ecological Economics isn't just a fancy new term, it's placing a value on the environment to compare with something like a Prosperity Mine. And what it tells us is that an area the size of the Prosperity project does not outweigh the value of a mine, especially when you add in the massive risk of things like acid mine drainage leaking from the lake-cum-tailings pond. 

It is a very human-centered way of looking at the world, but it tells us that the environment provides us with services like clean air, fish, grizzly bears, clean filtered water and so on, and a value can be placed on all of this. 

To my way of thinking, mining companies need to come to grips with this way of thinking. Ensuring a mine's value outweighs (or possibly even improves...) the value of all the services provided for free should be their starting point. Telling society that the mine must be developed or we'll all suffer is old school and blackmail. 

Try Listening Next Time

I like this quote from Marilyn Baptiste on Reuters:

"We hope today's decision will demonstrate the need to find a way forward for industry and governments to work with First Nations from the outset to identify and develop projects that are environmentally and culturally acceptable," said chief Marilyn Baptiste of the Xeni Gwet'in First Nation, in a statement.

Good on her.

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

BC Government Approves Prosperity Mine

Herein lies the great paradox of the BC Liberal government: supporting First Nations' in achieving stronger, healthier communities, while at the same time being perfectly willing to steamroll any band that dares oppose "progress".

The Vancouver Sun reported today that,

Taseko Mines Ltd's ambitious $800-million Prosperity gold-copper project cleared a major hurdle Thursday with the awarding of a provincial environmental assessment certificate.

The approval is contingent on the mine, among 102 other things, replacing Fish Lake (Teztan Biny) and Little Fish Lake with an artificial lake. Presumably the 80,000 or so trout in the big lake will be lovingly carried to the man-made one.

I am disappointed at all of this since there has been no respect paid to the local Xeni Gwet'in First Nation in their rather obvious concerns over the effect the mine and tailings pond will have on their ancestral home. The mining company has stomped rather typically on the Xeni's rights and ignored their opinions and opposition to the whole process.

Only the federal review panel holds any chance of stopping the mine, or even changing the plan to destroy the lakes.

The lakes must be destroyed, according to Taseko Mines, because it is the only possible place to put the tailings. If the tailings aren't covered in adequate amounts of water, they generate acid waste. If the acid waste leaves the tailings pond, through a spill or in groundwater and aquifers, it WILL create serious issues with fish, wildlife and water quality. In other words, it will poison the environment.

The province said it was satisfied that the duty of the Crown to consult and accommodate first nations interests had been discharged, noting that 13 aboriginal groups were consulted.

The Xeni Gwet'in First Nation has previously indicated its opposition to the project and in in January 2009 filed a writ in B.C. Supreme Court in an attempt to stop the project.

Xeni Gwet'in Chief Marilyn Baptiste, who announced the court case, could not be reached for comment.

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.