KSM Briefer #4

British Columbia recently awarded the KSM mine project with a “substantially started” determination, essentially making its Environmental Certificate good indefinitely.  As RWB’s new briefer on this subject [linked here] explains, there is irony in this determination because it essentially makes moot  one particularly commendable aspect of BC’s mining oversight; that being that when a development project does go forward, its Certificate should be relatively recently issued and based on reasonably up to date studies, environmental conditions, regulations, etc. 

That’s all been circumvented now for KSM.  The provincial government’s determination that KSM is “substantially started” with very little on the ground activity to back up that assertion means that one of the biggest mine proposals in the world could go forward many years or even decades into the future based on the same aging studies (already some fifteen years old) and findings, regardless of evolving factors like a changing climate, melting glaciers, new technology, or any lessons from disasters like the Mount Polley tailings dam failure. 

KSM Briefer #4