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Published in Fall 2003
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Copper mine subject of factual record
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A factual record released by the CEC in August says Canada has taken no enforcement action against the owners of an abandoned British Columbia mine that has been called the worst point source of metals pollution in North America.
The Britannia Mine was once the largest copper mine in the British Empire, and is one of 42 known or potentially acid-generating mines in British Columbia identified by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund in a citizen submission filed with the CEC in 1998.
The federal government asserts that a prosecution is not viable. Federal efforts have centered on studying impacts of Britannia effluent on marine life in Howe Sound, finding ways to treat the effluent, and lending technical assistance to provincial authorities.
In 2001, provincial authorities settled with past owners of the mine for $30 million, for violations of provincial law. The province plans to spend at least $75 million to remediate the mine site and build and operate an effluent treatment plant.
Sierra Legal claims that at operating and abandoned mines throughout British Columbia, Canada is failing to effectively enforce a section of the Fisheries Act that prohibits discharging toxic substances such as acid mine drainage into fish-bearing waters.
Fisheries Act enforcement under fire
The federal Fisheries Act was also at the center of two more factual records released on 7 August: in the BC Logging factual record, the submitters contended that two TimberWest timber harvests on private land on Vancouver Island had harmed fish habitat; in neighboring Alberta, Friends of the Oldman River claimed that the federal government failed to require Sunpine Forest Products to carry out an environmental assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and obtain an authorization to harm fish habitat under the Fisheries Act in connection with a 40-km, private log haul road built by Sunpine in the Rocky Mountain foothills in 1997.
In both cases, the factual records detailed the federal government's enforcement actions but drew no conclusions as to whether Canada had failed to effectively enforce the Fisheries Act.
And lastly, a factual record released in June reviewed Mexico's actions after the Boca Cegada shrimp farm operated by Granjas Aquanova, S.A. de C.V., had violated Mexico's environmental law and its environmental authorizations by destroying 42 hectares of mangrove forest, uprooting 250 coconut palms, filling wetlands, and discharging wastewater.
Information on these citizen submissions may be obtained online at <http://www.cec.org/citizen>.
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