Canadian mining disaster revisited
Two years after the mine’s massive tailings pond collapse, the tarnished Golden Triangle environmental and economic fallout continues
When a dam containing a small lake of water and mine slurry at the Mount Polley copper mine near Likely, BC gave way on August 4, 2014, the trees in the flood’s path weren’t the only things that got buried.
Also buried in the flood was what was supposed to be a great BC mining success story, the Red Chris copper-gold mine – the first of a new generation of mines to be built in the so-called Golden Triangle of Northwest BC as a result of the construction of the C$740 million (US$573 million) Northwest Transmission Line and C$700 million (US$542 million) Forrest Kerr run-of-river power project built by AltaGas.
Both mines were built by Imperial Metals. The Red Chris success story got buried on the back pages, while Mount Polley generated front-page headlines.
The new C$630 million (US$488 million) Red Chris mine was just weeks away from commissioning when, on August 4, the Mount Polley tailings pond breached, erasing some of the good will the company had built with First Nations and casting a shadow over other mine projects planned for the Golden Triangle.
The immediate impact for Imperial Metals was a single-day 40 per cent share price plunge, a C$67.4 million (US$52.2 million) cleanup bill and a delay in commissioning Red Chris. The company’s share price fell as low as C$3.99 (US$3.09), a 76 per cent drop from August 1, 2014, when it was C$16.80 (US$13.01).
Imperial’s stock has recovered somewhat, but at press time it was still trading at roughly half of what it was immediately prior to the collapse.