Hunting around Likely this fall (polley mine disaster)

[xcaribooer]

I cant believe what I am seeing on the news, just disgusting that something like this could happen. I am wondering if this is going to change your fall hunting plans for this area of the Cariboo?? I am not sure I would want to harvest an animal that is in this ecosystem drinking the water ect. Thoughts??

[srupp]

Hmmm I actually do have a moose draw for this area..for this fall not sure I will utelize it..will wait till results come in and decide then

Srr

[phase1]

Ya i'm in the same position - I was going to go for some deer up in that region this year.... but I'm with Steve I'll have to wait for the results to see what the results are

[olympia]

total bummer, I was gonna drive the road from canim lake towards the likely area this fall, guess I will have to see how much damage there is. I wonder which way it will push the game

[Kami]

The disaster is terrible. It should have never happened. Almost everything is preventable but still, sh@t happens. No way I'd choose to be eating anything that drinks the water from a copper mine tailing pond. It's a sad day for the entire mining community in BC.

[bcfirefly]

Family is from there, we have 1800 feet of lakeshore and a cabin. We get our two moose there every year. Were we go the moose should be fine but we stay at the cabin, now no water or even a shower? We will see. Also thinking of drafting a letter to the mine for them to buy the place. Definitely won't be the same :(

[Jelvis]

You can get cancer breathing that stuff in from the airborne particulate.
I wouldn't even think of going anywhere downstream from that poison.
This is an absolute nightmare what these company's do.
Now you can kiss the downstream goodbye. All the bucks and bulls and cows and does are drinking now, and the fish are done.
Jel the sky has fallin -- it's a down right shame.

[Gr8 white hunter]

And where is Crusty Cluck been? laying on a beach somewhere in the interior stirring her trench .laughing, drinking, swimming BBQing boating ect .

[Jelvis]

There saying all the waay to the ocean, every river and stream downwards is filled with arsenic poisoning and other deadly chemicals that wood take your ass sohp a loff e gus and melt it like rubber in a fire, BOOM!
Gone never to return, this is madness in the third degree.
Jelvis -- Bite Me!

[Kudu]

Family is from there, we have 1800 feet of lakeshore and a cabin. We get our two moose there every year. Were we go the moose should be fine but we stay at the cabin, now no water or even a shower? We will see. Also thinking of drafting a letter to the mine for them to buy the place. Definitely won't be the same :(




I'll buy it - I have first dibs on your fire sale!


Mount Polley Mine tailings water 'very close' to drinking quality, company says


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-tailings-water-very-close-to-drinking-quality-company-says-1.2727776

[Drillbit]

^"Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch says he would drink water from tailings pond that leaked into rivers"
He says he would drink the water. Now he should, on the 6 O'Clock news, his whole family should. Why not?

[The Hermit]

I think he should be made to drink a gallon of it every day for a year, and his kids too. Then we will see how safe he thinks it is! Is that too strong?

[ruger#1]

New today:

1.The Ministry of Environment has issued a Pollution Abatement Order to Mount Polley Mining Corp. This order requires immediate action to stop the further release of mine tailings into nearby waterways and to submit environmental impact assessments and clean-up action plans to the ministry.It also requires the company to submit a written summary of actions taken to stop the release of mine tailings and to undertake preliminary environmental impact assessment and submit an action plan by today. The company must also submit a detailed action plan by Aug. 15, and it is required to report weekly on the implementation of action plan measures.
2.The Cariboo Regional District (CRD) declared a state of local emergency (SOLE) allowing it the exceptional powers to suspend certain rights and freedoms in the interest of ensuring public safety. In this case, the CRD required the ability to gain access to private property in order to provide heavy equipment support to the West Fraser Mills forest company that is deploying tub boats for collection/control of woody debris from Lake Quesnel.Additionally, the declaration allows the CRD better enable a fair distribution of potable water to the residents of Likely.
3.Tug boats have been working in the area to boom the debris in the water and excavators are on standby in the event they are needed as well. Significant progress has been made.
4.Polley Lake: the mine’s management, in consultation with Geotech consultants and government geotechnical engineers, are reviewing alternatives to lower the water level in Polley Lake These may include pumping the water into a historic empty pit on the site or pumping or diverting the water to the Hazeltine Creek.
5.Tailings Pond: the mine’s management in consultation with Geotech consultants and government experts are reviewing a plan to build a berm to prevent further tailings from flowing into Hazeltine Creek.
6.Ministry of Energy and Mines inspectors continue their investigation. They have now begun the interview process in conjunction with the Conservation Service. This will involve interviewing mine staff and a review of all applicable documentation on the mine site.
7.Quesnel Lake & Likely Bridge: Good progress is being made by West Fraser to boom the debris in Quesnel Lake and prevent it from reaching the bridge. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has two excavators stationed at the Likely Bridge to respond should any significant accumulations of debris threaten the bridge. At this point, there is no imminent threat to the structure.
Current situation:

■The flow out of the breach has decreased dramatically, but has not completely stopped. Imperial Metals continues to work to stop flow out of the pond.
■A small amount of tailings backed into the mouth Polley Lake and the main slurry flow went down Hazeltine Creek where it meets Quesnel Lake. The slurry and a large debris pile appear to be stationary at this point. Hazeltine Creek was originally about four feet wide and is now up to 150 feet wide.
■The cause of the breach is still unknown at this time. Ministry of Environment conservation officers are investigating the breach along with Ministry of Energy and Mines mine inspectors, two of whom have been monitoring the site by helicopter.
■Water sampling took place the evening of Aug. 4 and samples were sent for testing early yesterday morning. Drinking water testing continues and results are expected tomorrow or Friday morning at the latest. Until that point, the environmental impact of the contaminated water on the local watershed remains unknown.
■In the meantime, the CRD has issued a water ban advisory not to drink, bath or feed livestock drawn from the following waterways: Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Cariboo Creek. The entire Quesnel River system right up to the Fraser River is under a “do not drink” advisory. **Note: boiling will not help**
■There have been no reports of injuries or people getting sick from drinking water. There have been no reports of property damage.
■The cost of the cleanup of the breach is the responsibility of Imperial Metals, and is not a cost borne by B.C. taxpayers.

[bcfirefly]

One of our places was already listed for sale ... always open to offers!

[ru rancher]

if you guys actually think the animals didnt drink from the tailings pong for the past how many years you are sadly mistaken there is no high fence around it animals drank out of that pond every day also ducks and geese would land in it and spend all day in it and people have hunted all those animals in that area for many years its the exact same water they have bin drinking all there lives so what if its now leaked all over the country side it wont change the quality of game meat at all!

[270ruger]

Yet Japan puts this much highly radioactive water into our ocean everyday,nobody upset and pissed off about all that,which will not even be contained for at least 40years in their estimation(wonder what's going to happen to our salmon stocks).Lots of stuff going wrong with our environment,wonder what kind of world we are leaving for our kids

[Kami]

Japan is not BC. They do all kinds of crazy stuff in Asia that is well below our standards here in BC. We are not packed with 127 million people on an island 1/3 the land mass size of BC. I refuse to buy seafood harvested in Asia for many reasons. Just because they do crazy stuff there does not mean it is acceptable here in BC. In BC we have the worlds largest salmon run. Up the mighty Fraser and Skeena rivers and all all their massive tributaries. I have seen personally seen Salmon in Lumby, up on top of the Coquihalla in rivers, NE of Prince George. As far east as Eagle River near Revelstoke. Our Salmon in BC should never be in a situation compared to Asia. What happened at Mt Polley is a disaster, should have never happened, but it did. Do you know why? Because sh*t happens. You cannot control everything. The only way to stop 95% of all environmental disasters is to wipe out man off the planet. The other 5% are caused by nature. Think of Mt St Helens erupting. Forest fires, ect. Blaming large corporations is BS. Claiming what they get away with is ridiculous greed. All BS. We can only blame ourselves. We all have iPhones, TV's cars, computers, guns, bullets, toilet paper, quads, boats, cars. We all love our electricity. None of it grows. It all stems from mining. We love our infrastructure, roads, hiways, bridges, schools, hospitals, transit, railways, airplanes. Without mining we have none of this.
Electricity does not come from a hole in the wall. Gasoline from the middle east is killing us. Toilet paper is not grown in your yard. Copper is not a clean precious metal. Until you stop driving your car to the next Ft Mac oil protest, and stop bitching about Copper Mines via the internet, until you go back to wiping your a$$ with cloth rags, you are to blame. A mine is only meeting a demand and pumping millions of dollars into our local economy. Stop thinking that mining, logging, pipelines, oil sands, should be done somewhere else. Not in my back yard. Get a grip and realize we all caused this. Not the mining company at Mount Polley.

[Kudu]

^"Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch says he would drink water from tailings pond that leaked into rivers"
He says he would drink the water. Now he should, on the 6 O'Clock news, his whole family should. Why not?

Bit late now - it's all siting in the Quisnel lake........

[Kudu]

if you guys actually think the animals didnt drink from the tailings pong for the past how many years you are sadly mistaken there is no high fence around it animals drank out of that pond every day also ducks and geese would land in it and spend all day in it and people have hunted all those animals in that area for many years its the exact same water they have bin drinking all there lives so what if its now leaked all over the country side it wont change the quality of game meat at all!


Exactly .........

No-one even thought about it before it got splashed (excuse the pun) all over the news!

[cruiser]

if you guys actually think the animals didnt drink from the tailings pong for the past how many years you are sadly mistaken there is no high fence around it animals drank out of that pond every day also ducks and geese would land in it and spend all day in it and people have hunted all those animals in that area for many years its the exact same water they have bin drinking all there lives so what if its now leaked all over the country side it wont change the quality of game meat at all!

true about the water pre-failure. That's not to say it didn't have metals in it, because it did. 'Almost' met drinking water standards does not mean it didn't have arsenic and other toxic stuff, just at levels close to 'safe' for consumption.
The bigger problem is that the surge of water carried a shit ton of finely ground tailings silts and sands full of metals. Those tailings which are supposed to stay submerged/unaggitated to keep fairly inert are now coating everything in that drainage and will continue to erode and be mobile in the system. In the lake the particles will settle with some time, but being stirred up it is not the same as the lens of water they had in the tailings pond before. So definitely it is worse now, they just need time to figure out how much so. Curious what the clean up plan will be.

[Goose]

Ruger - Thanks for that, that's really cool info.

[Ride Red]

Family is from there, we have 1800 feet of lakeshore and a cabin. We get our two moose there every year. Were we go the moose should be fine but we stay at the cabin, now no water or even a shower? We will see. Also thinking of drafting a letter to the mine for them to buy the place. Definitely won't be the same :(

The last time I looked, all region 5 is LEH, are you that lucky or ???

[nap]

One of our places was already listed for sale ... always open to offers!

If it can't be grown it has to be mined, I wish the best of luck to everyone concerned, even Imperial Metals. I do hope they are able to re open Mt Polley, A lot of people depend on mining, not only for wages but pretty much everything around us. Stop and have a look around, mining is part of our history and it will be part of our future, the water will clear in no time and nature will take care of the silt, the animals, birds, fish as well as us, we will survive. Who knows, maybe this will neutralize the whats hitting the coast from Japan, who knows.

bcfirefly, if you are worried about your properties, (which I think you shouldn't be) sell them quick, post them and put up a price, If you believe your properties will be worth nothing you will get lots of offers just above nothing. Might even get one from me for that matter, I hope the best for everyone.:neutral:

[budismyhorse]

attaboy.........a disaster none the less.......

People should realize the man toy buying, lifted truck having, sled deck installing, giant trailer towing comes at an environmental price.

whoops....time to update my iphone........and go pay my massive telus bill to pay for the warehouses full of servers made of precious metals used for wiring.......

[bcfirefly]

yes we are that lucky. play the odds. last few years the odds were 2:1 for cow / calf. Changed them this year and reduced the cow/calf (hopefully was proactive and not reactive). A bit of leg work researching the area's but that area holds a lot of moose.

[J_T]

There saying all the waay to the ocean, every river and stream downwards is filled with arsenic poisoning and other deadly chemicals that wood take your ass sohp a loff e gus and melt it like rubber in a fire, BOOM!
Gone never to return, this is madness in the third degree.
Jelvis -- Bite Me! Jelvis, over time, I have learned to respect you, but, I have to admit, it would be easier to respect you if I knew what you were saying.

I have a lot of respect for Brian Kynoch. Not everyone would step up and face the heat like he is. I sent him an email of support for his care and empathy to the community. They guy does care. The world needs mining. And mining comes with risk. So can we accept this spill has occurred? It is not 'preventable' now. It has happened. The Caribou has seen its share of environmental catastrophes since Gold was first discovered there. Yet the country side looks somewhat pristine, and some of the residents seem to forget why places like Likely or Barkerville even exist.

I don't think Brian needs to drink the water to prove a point. Think of all the open adits in the west kootenay with animals drinking arsenic and mercury all the time. Think of the residents of the west kootenay who have tapped in to a water source coming from an old underground mine. As an ex-mine inspector, I can think of literally hundreds of these occurrences.

Perhaps we should take another look at the discharge from the Trail smelter operations into the Columbia. And then pass judgement on Imperial Metals. Before we make statements of every drainage from Quesnel to the Pacific.

[quaint bucket]

x2 J_T is bang on.

[Ride Red]

Jelvis, over time, I have learned to respect you, but, I have to admit, it would be easier to respect you if I knew what you were saying.

I have a lot of respect for Brian Kynoch. Not everyone would step up and face the heat like he is. I sent him an email of support for his care and empathy to the community. They guy does care. The world needs mining. And mining comes with risk. So can we accept this spill has occurred? It is not 'preventable' now. It has happened. The Caribou has seen its share of environmental catastrophes since Gold was first discovered there. Yet the country side looks somewhat pristine, and some of the residents seem to forget why places like Likely or Barkerville even exist.

I don't think Brian needs to drink the water to prove a point. Think of all the open adits in the west kootenay with animals drinking arsenic and mercury all the time. Think of the residents of the west kootenay who have tapped in to a water source coming from an old underground mine. As an ex-mine inspector, I can think of literally hundreds of these occurrences.

Perhaps we should take another look at the discharge from the Trail smelter operations into the Columbia. And then pass judgement on Imperial Metals. Before we make statements of every drainage from Quesnel to the Pacific.

Well said JT. Not that many years ago when Mt.ST.Helens erupted, the scientists said we would have weather pattern changes which would never return to normal. When the Exon Valdez spilt oil down our coast, we were never to recover. When BP's pipeline valve failed, this was to ruin the entire coast down there. Well, Mt.St.Helens has completely recovered, without many people knowing it even erupted. The Exon spill down the coast has recovered, which most people don't even know about. BP's major oil spill is a thing of the past too without any remnants of oil and this just happened over the past couple years. My point being, with restoration of the creek, hydro seeding and tree planting, you won't even know anything happened within 5-10 years. Hopefully the dilution rate will take over and normalize the toxin effects as mother nature always seems to do. I know we are all saddened by this disaster, but we wouldn't have the lives we have today without big business taking these risks. Yes, there may be a better place for the tails pond, but would it be a viable option for the company? I hope for the sake of the people who depend on these jobs that this disaster doesn't financially ruin this company. Just my two cents.

[Darksith]

so the water has been tested in the lake, it is safe to drink, but don't do it yet, as they just measured a little bit of it. Yes there are a lot of heavy metals, toxins and other substances that are now in the "system", close monitoring will need to be done for a long time to see where the sediments end up, how they affect everything else, but I suspect other than it completely sucking, it won't destroy all the fish of the fraser, all the salmon that use quesnel lake as a throughway, or all the animals that live in the area. Thats not to say we should just give the company a pass and forget about it, but staying calm and looking at this from an educated calm perspective, learning how it happened, why it happened and how it can be prevented province wide in the future is key.

[srupp]

Great thread Jt thank you

Steven