Namu workers on BCP block
B.C. Packers has finally decided the fate of Namu for this year and to nobody's surprise, a vastly reduced operation will be conducted.
In keeping with the company's plans to trim plants and jobs, no cold storage or processing will be done at Namu on the central coast. This move is expected to cut nearly 50 percent of the workforce at the camp, leaving many looking for jobs in an economic time when there aren't any.
Richard Gregory, senior vice-president of operations said only day boats will be unloaded at the facility and the fish will be iced and sent out almost immediately.
Ice will be available to boats and the machine shop will function this year along with the net loft, but the mess hall, bunk houses and the village will be closed.
During the peak season, the camp employed more than 100 workers, including 40 to 45 in fresh fish, but none of these workers will return this year.
The camp, according to Gregory, is up for sale and B.C. Packers is willing to entertain serious offers. He also didn't rule out further cuts or a complete closure for the 1984 schedule.
He said a skeleton crew was at the camp now and others would be hired on according to their seniority.
Also affected by the severe cutback will be coastal freight services, which depended on the transportation offish and goods to and from Namu to make money.
Jim Sinclair photo
• Carolin Mines manager Kel Collins overlooks the controversial tailings pond where waste from the gold mining and milling operation near Hope is deposited. The mine has been closed down since March 25 because of high levels of iron cyanide in the tailings and sharp rise in water behind the earth tailings dam.
Carolin mine shutdown
Weak review led to problems
A friend of the fishermen
J.M. (JIM) MIKI
Res. 271-6822 Office 273-0545
Marine Insurance Brokers
High in a mountain valley above the Coquihalla River, one of B.C.'s premier steelhead and pink salmon rivers, engineers and biologists are struggling to control a tailings pond full of 272 million litres of cyanide-laced mine waste.
The tailings are the product of the ill-fated Carolin Mine, an Alberta-backed gold mine and milling operation closed twice for environmental reasons since its opening in December, 1981.
Last year company officials started up the mine before it was ready and it resulted in the company being forced to discharge basically untreated waste into the Lander river in order to protect the tailings dam.
Environmental officials were not even aware it was in operation until a hiker discovered dead steelhead fry, apparently victims of the tailings. Twenty-seven charges relating to the spill will go to trial in June.
Now, after briefly resuming operation, the mine is closed again while the company struggles to stabilize the tailings pond. More than 200 gallons of waste a minute are being
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dumped into Ladner Creek to control the pond while scientists try to find a way to neutralize the iron cyanide.
If they succeed, Carolin's 135 workers may be able to return to the job. If they fail, Ladner Creek, the Coquihalla and ultimately the Fraser River itself may receive a sudden, heavy dose of toxic waste.
The Carolin story is a classic example of an environmental accident looking for a place to happen. It is a story of hurried environmental reviews, slapdash engineering and a mining company that put profit ahead of planning.
"We're not here to treat water," says mine manager Kel Collins. "We're here to treat gold."
But the UFAWU has demanded the mine remain closed until a complete review of its operation has proved it can be run safely. Until that time, the union said in a news release March 25, the mine permit should be revoked.
The provincial environment ministry agrees that the government erred from the beginning when it approved Carolin's operation without a second stage review under environment and land use regulations.
Despite criticisms from inside the ministry that tailings pond construction was inadequate and effluent treatment insufficient, the mine was approved. Socred MLA Walter Davidson is a Carolin shareholder.
Today, the ministry of the environment is spending thousands of dollars a month at the mouth of the Ladner Creek testing for toxic waste levels 24 hours a day.
"The criticism that it (the review) didn't go to stage two is a valid one," reports Don Hehn, lower mainland regional director for the provincial environment ministry.
He admits the review process "did not work well in this case," and that "we're up there spending thousands of dollars watching something that should not have happened."
Problems cropped up as soon as the mine opened. The mill was put into operation before the tailings pond and treatment facilities were complete.
"The original problem was the effort of management to get cash flow going without advising anybody," says Alec Richardson, deputy chief inspector of mines.
Anger at the early start-up, which was discovered after the spill, jeopardized a release of steelhead smolts and forced local residents to stop drinking the water, still lingers at the environment ministry.
"We were really cheezed off,"
said Hehn. "It made us look like a bunch of idiots."
The second bad shock came when officials learned that iron cyanide was being produced as a byproduct of the milling procedure. This dangerous poison, released when the chemical is exposed to sunlight, is contained in a tailings pond which remains vulnerable to collapse because of heavy rains and snow.
"The iron cyanide problem came right out of left field," Hehn charged. "It is not toxic when released, but in sunlight, it will become toxic to fish and a fish kill will result."
While Hehn says the mine will not reopen until the iron cyanide problem is solved, an official in the waste management branch of the same ministry is not convinced the problem is serious. ,
"The iron cyanide is not very toxic," said the official, who declined to be named. He said he would have ignored the iron cyanide limit in the permit and added that the waste management branch is moving to loosen the restrictions on the discharge of waste into Ladner Creek.
Collins frankly admits that Carolin had no idea what its milling process would produce. "We didn't know what we are talking about and I don't think anybody did," he said.
Carolin now is installing a new process to deal with the iron
cyanide and has ringed the tailings pond with a sprinkler system to blow liquid waste into the air to let the sunlight at the cyanide.
Iron cyanide isn't the only problem. Federal fisheries water quality technician Wayne Knapp says his department said "all along we want to see nontoxic effluent come out of the end of the pipe."
The provincial government ignored this request when issuing the permit. Now, with the effluent being drained off for fears the dam might collapse, Knapp said the government has been "boxed into a corner."
Federal fisheries would settle for a non-toxic discharge at the mouth of the Ladner Creek, he said, but he denied this means the government is prepared to write off the fish in the creek, which include dolly varden.
'There hasn't been a proven technology for Carolin Mines to date," Knapp said, "and they're scrambling now."
All agree that the first priority is to stabilize the tailings dam. Ironically, this may mean Collins may get his wish to resume operations to calm the fears of shareholders. The only way to stabilize the dam appears to be generation of more solid waste from the mine operation.
If a sudden storm hits before the dam is stabilized, the potential Carolin mines disaster could become reality.
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