A B.C. coal mining company in northeastern B.C. has been fined more than $45,000 for repeated violations of the province’s environmental protection rules, including the failure to monitor mine waste into fish-bearing water and failure to limit particulate being put into the air.
Conuma Resources Limited is a metallurgical coal mining company operating in the Tumbler Ridge area in northeastern B.C., roughly 660 kilometres directly northeast of Vancouver.
It mines coal from to produce carbon used in steelmaking at three different sites in the region, employing approximately 900 people.
In documents posted online, the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change argued the company repeatedly and knowingly failed to comply with environmental regulations, limiting the amount of particulate put into the air by mining operations, and failed to monitor waste water put into local waterways on more than 400 separate occasions.
They are being very lenient here, but these fines are probably the first of many. They may well lose their permit to operate, as it is within the Director’s right to do so.
The 406 instances of not monitoring effluent sounds like they shut down their water monitoring program periodically (winter?). Not controlling mine effluent is a big no-no. A major mine company got fined 60 million for selenium issues. Also, you risk getting DFO involved, since their purview covers all fish-bearing water, and bad things happen pretty quickly once the feds are involved.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Cool article.