OTTAWA – Environment Canada is recommending that the Harper government toughen rules to prevent water pollution from industrial mines and that it expand federal monitoring to at least four new substances released from mining activity.
“These substances are harmful or potentially toxic, and in some cases potentially fatal to fish, and they are present in effluent from a wide range of metal mines,” says an internal Environment Canada discussion paper, circulated last December to representatives from industry, the provinces, First Nations and environmental groups.
The document was launching a review of existing regulations, which came into force in December 2002 and were designed to monitor pollution from mines that could get into water. The paper estimated that there were 105 existing metal mines in Canada in 2010, with about another 60 under review or proposed for operation in the future.
The four new substances, recommended for restrictions in the discussion paper, were aluminum, iron, selenium and ammonia.
An internal memo sent to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver about the Environment Department’s review noted that Canada had also received a warning from the United States about selenium, a pollutant associated with coal mines, getting into transboundary waterways.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has indicated that it will be taking a hard look at what Canada decides with respect to acceptable selenium levels in the upcoming review,” said the memo to Oliver, dated Sept. 10, 2012, from his deputy minister, Serge Dupont, and released through access to information legislation.
A graphic from an Environment Canada discussion paper shows existing mining sites across the country.
The Environment Canada discussion paper also recommended more “stringent” limits on the substances covered by the existing regulations and new restrictions on non-metal mines such as sites extracting diamond and coal.
An Environment Canada spokesman said Thursday that the department was reviewing the regulations in order to “update and strengthen” them as part of its regular due diligence.
“The regulations need to be updated to consider new substances of concern, new environmental effects information and advances in effluent treatment technologies,” said spokesman Mark Johnson.
A mining industry spokesman, Pierre Gratton, said his organization requested the government review so that member companies could have more certainty about their own operations in relation to the federal Fisheries Act, which is the main national law preventing water pollution in Canada.
“We certainly have some pretty serious concerns with some of the proposed limits, but they are a starting point and they have helped inform some new science that is being developed,” said Gratton, president and chief executive officer of the Mining Association of Canada. “We’re not opposed to regulations. In fact, regulations can often provide the certainty that industry needs to make decisions.”
He added that the industry association recommended the existing approach to the consultations, which includes the representatives from the other governments, environmental groups and First Nations. Provincial governments also have separate regulations for mining operations, he said.
But developing the regulations could take up to two years to sort out details on restrictions on substances, said Gratton, explaining that some substances could also be naturally occurring in the environment around mines.
“Keep in mind that reducing limits, as proposed here, could have huge implications for some mines,” said Gratton. “It could put some of them out of business. You can’t have that if the science that informs the needs for those proposed limits isn’t strong.”
Environment Canada said the consultation process was slated to last 12 to 18 months.
Ramsey Hart, the Canada program co-ordinator from MiningWatch, a non-profit group that monitors the mining industry, said his organization supported some of the government’s recommendations, while hoping that it would go further.
“The importance of aquatic ecosystems to humans goes beyond just whether you eat the fish,” said Hart in an interview. “You may be affecting the viability of the ecosystems to maintain their biodiversity and maintain their resilience in the face of other impacts such as climate change.”
In its 2012 budget, the Harper government announced $1 million in spending over two years to expand the regulations to non-metal, diamond and coal mines.
Although the Environment Canada document was distributed in December, the memo to the natural resources minister suggested it could have been released a few months earlier.
“Environment Canada (EC) anticipates the release of its discussion paper entitled 10-year Review of the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations in September 2012,” said the memo to Oliver. “Your colleague, the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment, has not yet approved the paper for public consultation.”
Environment Canada released a copy of the discussion paper to Postmedia News on Thursday in response to a request on Monday, but was not immediately able to confirm whether it had originally anticipated releasing the document in September.
