New concerns are outdated and misleading at bestThe articles are indeed misleading and outdated.
Why?
1st, the mines started in the 1960s. Technology has improved just a wee bit since then. Maybe they should ask our lead engineer, Harvey McLeod, his thoughts when they wrote the article to get his thoughts on if he thinks safety and technology have changed since the 60s.
2nd, the mines dumped the waste rock right into the lake and so of course the surrounding silt would be impacted. In fact, Granisle mine is on an island in the lake and they created a bigger island by dumping the waste rock right into the water.
In our case the tailings pond I think is 1.8 kilometers away from the pit....they are not dumping into the lake anymore. In other words these are two completely different scenarios.
Regarding technology advances, as an example, even I am involved with removing metals from water.
The inventor of the cancer screening tests that I have mentioned on this site (see www.cancer.us) also discovered a byproduct of white rice production called IP6 that binds to minerals. The patent to remove heavy metals using IP6 was recently applied for. We use these types of binding agents to remove heavy medals in people. Because IP6 comes from the bran of rice, and there are literally millions of tons of rice bran. IP6 potentially will be a very economical way to remove heavy metals from water and maybe applicable to mining, as large volumes of water are involved. We are on schedule to make the cancer screening tests available next year. After the cancer screening trsts are launched, then effort will be spent to advance the water purification technology. If I am just one of 8 billion people on this planet and I am involved with removing heavy metals from water, then surely there are others.
Below is the response I saw when I asked Google how many engineers graduate each year?
Various articles in the popular media, speeches by policy-makers, and reports to Congress have stated that the United States graduates roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers annually, whereas China graduates 600,000 and India 350,000.
With more than a million engineers graduating every year, surely mining practices have improved.
It is embarrassing to think that the BC government would take this article seriously. Plus, as I understand it, Glencore is spending significant amounts on water treatment each year.