The Peterson Creek Aquifer should be declared contaminated if the proposed mining starts

Posted by Stop Ajax Mine on April 4th, 2016 10:24am

“The Peterson Creek Aquifer should be declared contaminated if the proposed mining starts, concludes Dr. Kevin Morin, an expert in contaminant hydrogeology, after reviewing KGHM’s Application for the proposed Ajax mine near Kamloops, British Columbia.

“The Peterson Creek Aquifer should be declared contaminated if the proposed mining starts, concludes Dr. Kevin Morin, an expert in contaminant hydrogeology, after reviewing KGHM’s Application for the proposed Ajax mine near Kamloops, British Columbia.

In a water quality report commissioned by the Sierra Club of B.C., Dr. Morin “found a cumulative and substantial underestimation of the extent and severity of contamination (1) at the source, which is the proposed minesite, and (2) in one pathway reviewed…the Peterson Creek Aquifer.”

“The volume of contaminated water flowing from the [proposed] East Mine Rock Storage Facility into the groundwater will be at least 16 times higher than modelled” by Ajax’s consultants, according to Dr. Morin, who believes that this contamination will flow into the Peterson Creek Aquifer. 

In a warning to well owners drawing from the aquifer, Dr. Morin states:

As a contamination hydrogeologist with a Ph.D. in this field, I strongly recommend to people using water from the Peterson Creek Aquifer to have the well water tested (1) very frequently and (2) in perpetuity, now and in the future if the mine is built. Or, to be more cautious, to avoid using the aquifer water.

Sierra Club of B.C. spokesperson, Ana Simeon, cites Morin’s conclusion that the intentional contamination of the Peterson Creek Aquifer fails to meet British Columbia’s Water Sustainability Act and the Ground Water Protection Regulation, as disturbing and unacceptable.

Although the report analyzed the mine’s expected impacts on Peterson Creek in greater detail, the underestimate of the mine’s impacts on Peterson Creek by KGHM and its consultants, Dr. Morin concludes that other “likely impacts, damage and harm to human health and environmental quality are significantly underestimated in the Ajax EIS.”

In a separate report prepared by Dr. Morin’s company, Minesite Drainage Assessment Group, for the KAPA, it was found that several laboratory methods used by KGHM’s consultants to determine the composition and amounts of toxic substances in the mine’s ore and waste rock may underestimate the levels of these substances being emitted into the air and water.

The report looked specifically at analytical techniques for chemical elements and concluded, for example, “If the amount of a parameter such as copper is not accurately estimated, then the impact to the surrounding environment and human health cannot be estimated.”

This lack of accurate baseline data led Dr. Morin to be critical of KGHM’s refusal to disclose its assay data and how this data was derived. As Morin asks:

So what are the levels of metals and other potentially toxic elements in Ajax rock, tailings and overburden? We do not know accurately and the company will not tell us. The company claims the environmental analyses in the EIS tell us, but they are wrong.

“We have been requesting to the government assessment agencies, without success, for four years that KGHM release not only all of their assay data, but how these assays were done,” KAPA spokesperson John Schleiermacher notes. 

“The government assessment agencies must now determine whether the scientific data presented by KGHM is so inaccurate that it invalidates all of their water, air and health studies,” Schleiermacher adds.

“KGHM promises us zero-harm and former Environment Minister Terry Lake promised us a rigorous environmental assessment,” Schleiermacher continues. “Instead, we have report after report exposing more and more fundamental scientific flaws in KGHM’s Application, to the point that their commitments to zero-harm and the precautionary principle sounds more like a slick sales slogan than sound, credible science,” Schleiermacher concludes.

Dr. Morin will be presenting the finding in the two reports at a public forum on the Ajax mine at the Thompson River University ClockTower building, 7:30 PM, April 6. Also presenting finding from their reports are Dr. Douw Steyn on air quality modeling, and Kent Watson on mine’s impacts on the soil on and near the mine footprint.

For further information contact:

John Schleiermacher, Kamloops Area Preservation Association
250-374-7431

Ana Simeon, Sierra Club of B.C.
778-677-4740

 

Also, please see attached documents:

Evaluation of Solid-Phase Analytical Techniques for Chemical Elements Used in the Proposed Ajax Mine EIS

and 

Ajax Project Review - Review of Predicted Water Contamination

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