Dead willows along Silverbow Creek are surrounded by acid producing metal-laden mine tailings deposited by the 1908 flood. 
 from http://www.earthscienceworld.org/images/search/results.html?Keyword=Acid%20Mine%20Drainage#null

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.

Fighting for Fish Lake: Project Enviro. Assessment Questioned

Pacific Free Press published an article I wrote:

Fighting for Fish Lake: Project Enviro. Assessment Questioned

Pacific Free Press is an excellent web site, and not just because the published the article. They take an activist approach and aren't afraid to take on tough issues!

Even More on Acid Mine Drainage

Here are some snippets of information on Acid Mine Drainage and what lies ahead for Taseko Mines' Prosperity Mine:

Soils and spoils exposed to acid mine drainage do not support vegetation and are susceptible to erosion. When acid mine drainage enters natural waterways, changes in pH and the formation of voluminous precipitates of metal hydroxides can devastate fish populations and other aquatic life.  There may be as many as 500,000 inactive or abandoned mines in the United States, with mine drainage severely impacting approximately 19,300 km of streams and more than 72,000 ha of lakes and reservoirs (2-3, ). Once initiated, mine drainage may persist for decades... solve.http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a740169972

Acid mine drainage has already polluted more than 12,000 miles of rivers and streams and over 180,000 acres of lakes and impoundments in the United States. According to the U.S. EPA, acid mine drainage from coal mining is the leading source of water pollution in the Mid-Atlantic States. Acid Mine Drainage from metal mines in Western states has caused some of the country's largest and most contaminated Superfund sites. Mining companies argue that modern mining methods can protect against Acid Mine Drainage, but they cannot point to a single mine that is more than a few years old that has not resulted in contamination. Because Acid Mine Drainage often takes several years to develop, recent mines that have not yet contaminated nearby waters do not provide proof that these ores can be mined safely. http://www.sosbluewaters.org/ 

Acid Mine Drainage Pictures 

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/kirby/AMD.html

Prosperity a Foregone Conclusion?

 You'd Think So From Their Press Releases:

January 15, 2010
Taseko Receives Provincial Approval to Proceed With Prosperity

"Obviously we are tremendously pleased with the Provincial Government's decision. We put considerable effort and Company resources into the documentation and process and to have now received this approval is both gratifying and rewarding," says Taseko President & CEO Russell Hallbauer.

"The Government of British Columbia has authority and responsibility for mine development in the Province. Now that they have given their approval we will proceed to apply for and secure the necessary leases, licenses and permits required to advance the project," concluded Mr. Hallbauer.

Good for the stock prices, right?

And the environment?

More on Acid Mine Drainage

I've been reading more on Acid Mine Drainage... relevant to the sort we can expect of the Prosperity Mine goes ahead.

Need to know more about AMD? just look on the internet.

Denver-based Newmont Mining Co. fined millions for cyanide spill at Ghanaian mine

EARTHWORKS

Denver-based Newmont Mining Co. fined millions for cyanide spill at Ghanaian mine

Panel faults company for failing to prevent accident, delays in notifying authorities

Joint release: EARTHWORKS * WACAM

Accra and Washington, 01/21: Ghanaian authorities are fining Denver-based Newmont Mining millions of dollars for negligently spilling cyanide at its Ahafo gold mine in October 2009, resulting in water contamination and fish kills. A Ghanaian Ministerial Panel that evaluated the spill and its aftermath recommended that the company be fined US$ 4.9 million for failing to prevent the spill or to properly report on and investigate the spill. 

Newmont Mining has been around a long time, they aren't a relative newbie like Taseko Mines, and still they show complete disregard for the environment. Should it matter that they are in a country without adequate environmental protection?

That must depend on the attitude of the mining company. BHP Billiton, for example, is working to extend the same level of environmental practices to all of its operations worldwide, kind like an ISO exersize.  Taseko? Mines? they have certainly never shown this sort regard for the environment at its Gibraltar operation.

The most recent additions to that mine have seen their waste management grandfathered into the old permit, rather than raise the bar to modern standards. Farmers below the mine have spoken for years about hush money paid to those whose cattle drink downstream.

A report on AMD from Alaska states that:

Logarithmic increases in metal levels in waters from sulfide-rich mining environments are common where surface or groundwater pH is depressed by acid generation from sulfide minerals.Acid Mine Drainage and Effects on Fish Health and Ecology: A Review

A logarithmic increase is the sort I showed in a graph the other day. In that case we were looking at surface area as a rock is broken into smaller and smaller pieces. The result of all that extra surface area is skyrocketing levels of metals reaching the groundwater.

Will Taseko build the 1 Billion dollar "pond" liner that the federal review panel suggests it will need to prevent groundwater?

How should we know, they won't say... the company line is, "let us build this mine and THEN we'll plan our mitigation strategy".

Meanwhile, publishers like the Williams Lake Tribune suggest that the mine is being held up by "professional environmentalists" and "obstructionist aboriginal groups", as if these two had nothing better to do than prevent "progress".

I see Taseko Mines is advertising in the Tribune, no doubt to ensure favourable coverage!

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