Application Denied

BC’s
Kemess North and Nova Scotia’s Whites Point projects promised jobs and
revenue, but the communities were looking for overall sustainability.

By Alberto Fonseca and Robert Gibson

NORTHGATE
MINERAL CORPORATION’s proposed Kemess North Project will not be going
ahead, at least not soon and not as proposed. The project – an
open-pit, copper-gold expansion to an existing mine in a remote,
mountainous area of northcentral British Columbia – was rejected by
provincial and federal authorities.

In his
March 7, 2008, announcement, BC Environment Minister Barry Penner said
that while the government recognized that the mine would bring jobs and
other economic benefits for an expected 13 years of construction and
operation, these benefits would be “outweighed by the adverse social,
environmental and cultural effects and risks.”

In
denying Northgate’s application, Penner accepted the recommendation of
a federal-provincial environmental assessment panel that had held
public hearings and applied a “contribution to sustainability” test to
the proposed project.

While environmental
assessment processes are often presented as a means of contributing to
sustainability, the long-standing tradition has been to focus only on
how to mitigate significant adverse effects. Instead, the Kemess North
panel took the sustainability requirement seriously. They asked whether
the project would leave a positive overall legacy, not just whether the
immediate effects would be minimally damaging.

In
its September 2007 final report, the panel concluded that the project
was not likely to bring lasting gains, especially because of the
long-term effects of the mine wastes on ecological and Aboriginal
interests. The project as proposed would have dumped 700 million tonnes
of acid-generating mine tailings and waste rock into nearby Amazay Lake
(also called Duncan Lake), a body of water that is spiritually
significant for local First Nations.

The
company said that using Amazay Lake for tailings disposal was the
safest and least costly option. But the panel noted that after the mine
closed, the wastes would have to be managed for thousands of years.
First Nations members, who are the region’s main residents and who have
unresolved land claims in the area, would be most at risk.

For
its assessment review, the Kemess panel adopted a sustainability-based
evaluation framework based on recent mining industry initiatives and on
the BC government’s 2005 Mining Plan. The framework focused on five
sustainability considerations: environmental stewardship, economic
benefits and costs, social and cultural benefits and costs, fair
distribution of benefits and costs, and present versus future
generations.

After evaluating the project
in light of these considerations, individually and in combination, the
panel concluded that “overall, from a public interest perspective, the
benefits of project development do not outweigh the costs.”

Although
the Kemess panel was the first in Canada to recommend the outright
rejection of a mining project, it was not the first to apply a
sustainability test. The pioneering case was the mid-1990s
environmental assessment of the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine-mill project
in Labrador.

The Voisey’s Bay panel,
established under a joint agreement involving two Aboriginal
organizations as well as the federal and provincial governments,
examined “the extent to which the undertaking may make a positive
overall contribution towards the attainment of ecological and community
sustainability, both at the local and regional levels.” In the end, the
panel found that the proposed project was generally acceptable if the
project proponent met certain conditions.

The
Kemess North panel report took a similar approach, though with an
analysis based on five key sustainability considerations, and with less
favourable results for the proponent.

In
October 2007, only a month after the Kemess North decision, a
federal-provincial panel on the other side of the country released its
sustainability-based review, also concluding that the project proponent
had failed to pass the test. The Whites Point panel reviewed a proposal
for a large basalt quarry and marine terminal in Nova Scotia (see
“Power of the People” on page 13). The panel found the immediate
economic gains from the project would accrue mostly to the proponent
and would compromise long-term qualities and opportunities, in this
case sustainable community economic development based on tourism and
fishing. The Nova Scotia government accepted the panel’s recommendation
to reject the project, though the proponent, a US firm, has since
initiated an appeal under NAFTA.

Whether the
Voisey’s Bay, Kemess and Whites Point cases represent the future of
environmental assessment in Canada is not yet clear. But Anthony Hodge,
a professor of mining and sustainability at Queen’s University,
believes the writing is on the wall. He says, “It’s inevitable that
this is going to happen more and more.” It is not an issue of whether
sustainability tests will be increasingly applied in environmental
assessment reviews, but, says Hodge, “how fast it will happen.”
Joan
Kuyek, the national co-ordinator of MiningWatch Canada, is less
optimistic. While Kuyek hopes that the higher test will prevail, she
fears that the Kemess and Whites Point results may trigger industry
lobbying against panel reviews with sustainability expectations.

Last
year, MiningWatch took Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to court for
dodging a full assessment of the proposed Red Chris Copper-Gold Mine in
Northern BC. Federal Court Justice Luc Martineau ruled in favour of
MiningWatch, agreeing that DFO had unlawfully evaded the required
comprehensive study of the Red Chris proposal in favour of a simple
screening process. However, that ruling was appealed and has since been
overturned by a higher court.

Kuyek believes
industry lobbying lay behind DFO’s efforts to minimize assessment
obligations and is likely to focus now on preventing entrenchment of
the Voisey’s Bay, Kemess and Whites Point precedents.

Such
lobbying contradicts the global mining industry’s commitment to the
principles of sustainable development. An example of the mining
industry’s official stand is the Sustainable Development Framework of
the International Council on Mining and Metals, which has been embraced
by the world’s top mining corporations and associations.

The
BC and Nova Scotia governments’ acceptance of the Kemess and Whites
Point panel recommendations appears to corroborate Hodge’s optimism.
Other Canadian and international cases also point to the spread of
sustainability-based tests. Applications have been reported in
Australia, Hong Kong, Ghana, South Africa and the United Kingdom, among
others. In 2006, the international Journal of Environmental Assessment
Policy and Management dedicated an entire issue to the “new” field.

Approaches
vary. Some consider economic, social and ecological effects (the “three
pillars” of sustainability) separately, while others attempt to address
interrelationships and overlapping concerns such as livelihood effects,
and the distribution of gains and losses. But they all share a broader
agenda and a longer vision than has been common practice.
It is an
innovation that brings to mind the sensible words of Henry David
Thoreau: “In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore,
though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something
high.”