The Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS) abruptly resigned this month from the Technical Advisory Committee that keeps tabs on water discharges from Taseko’s Gibraltar Mine, the second-largest open-pit copper mine in Canada.
After eight years there has been “absolutely no progress” on improving the mine’s water management practices, society chair Bill Lloyd wrote in a letter sent to other members of the committee.
Gibraltar Mine, northeast of Williams Lake, is 75 per cent owned by Taseko Mines Ltd., which took over the mine site in 1999.
An application for a permit to discharge water into the Fraser River was (Read more…) in 2005 and granted in 2009. In 2015 the province gave temporary permission for the mine to increase the discharge so the effects could be studied — the company now wants that discharge permit made permanent.