A aerial view shows the damage caused by a tailings pond breach on Lake Polley, B.C. Tuesday, August, 5, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
LIKELY, B.C. - The minister responsible for British Columbia's mines says residents living along waterways affected by a mining-waste spill could catch a lucky break because the waste may not be poisonous.
Bill Bennett says the Mount Polley tailings pond breach in B.C.'s Cariboo region may not be toxic because the mine is not acid generating, which means caustic chemicals are not leached out of the rocks and into the water.
Initial test results show water in the surrounding area is of drinking quality, but a water-use ban is still in effect because the nearby Polley Lake has not yet been tested.
David Lacroix of the town of Likely, which is in the spill area, says the findings have made him optimistic, but he wonders why more was not done to prevent the accident.
The tailings pond of the Mount Polley mine was breached on Monday, sending 58-hundred Olympic swimming pools worth of waste water and potentially toxic silt into nearby waterways.
Residents were warned not to bathe in or drink the water because authorities were concerned heavy metals from the mine, owned by Imperial Metals (TSX:III), could be poisonous.