LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Ottawa may be setting a dangerous precedent

Contrary to the “On the Level” motto at the top of your editorial page, I think your theodolite took a bit of a tilt when you published the editorial “What a tangled web . . .” (T.N.M., July 1/96). You have attempted to discredit what you see as an environmentalist web of deception by spinning your own sticky silken strands.

First of all, environmental groups have said they are upset, not because the panel recommended that BHP’s proposed mine in the Northwest Territories be approved, but because the conditions the panel recommended are so weak.

As for BHP’s environmental impact study, just because it was the heaviest and most expensive one done for a Canadian mining project does not mean that it was adequate or well done. There was agreement among a number of government and independent scientists (and even one of BHP ‘s own witnesses) that some important ecological baseline information was incomplete, and that more years of study are required.

Diamond mining may be “relatively benign,” given that no chemicals are required for processing, but there is a potential problem — some of the kimberlite ore itself is harmful to fish. Until the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has finished its research into the situation, we should reserve judgment about how benign diamond mining is. And your claim that “there is now potential for acid drainage” is incorrect. According to BHP’s own 1995 Baseline Study Update, 27% of the waste rock from the Misery pit falls in a moderate category of sulphate production, and “there is a small potential that waste rock drainage could result in elevated dissolved metals in the receiving environment.”

The $11-million study you refer to, The West Kitikmeot Slave (WKSS), will not be paid for entirely by taxpayers, nor is it likely that so much money will ever be spent on the WKSS. The federal and Northwest Territories governments have pledged up to a maximum of $750,00 each per year for the study, but these are matching funds, so each government will pay only as much as can be raised every year by all the other interests in the study put together — the mining industry, native organizations, environmental groups and others.

What are the chances of these non-government groups together raising $750,000 per year for five years? Even though the study was announced with much fanfare, it is off to a rocky start with little real support from government.

The WKSS was meant to deal with regional, cumulative impacts, but it is anybody’s guess how many of the required studies will ever be done.

I don ‘t think that environmentalists supporting the right of aboriginal groups to give their consent to development on their ancestral lands is the same as telling the public that mining companies are “riding roughshod” over aboriginal rights. Individual mining companies will continue to have to deal with the land claims issue until the mining industry, as a whole, puts pressure on the federal government to settle these claims. Only in this way will industry get the certainty it says it has been seeking for years.

No environmentalist I know has ever refused to acknowledge that many natives support BHP, or that the project has already provided jobs and other economic benefits for northerners. And we have never denied that Charles Fipke [founder of Dia Met Minerals] deserves every bit of his share of the earnings. Our interest is simply to ensure that northerners receive the maximum possible benefits.

As for the lakes that will be destroyed so that the diamonds can be mined, a number of genetically distinct fish populations will be lost forever in the process, which will be a loss to the biodiversity of the barrenlands and to the planet as a whole. Sure there are thousands of lakes on the BHP property alone, but so what? Biodiversity should be protected, not squandered. And if it’s acceptable for BHP to eradicate lakes and fish populations, then it should be equally acceptable for other companies to do so. But where will all this lead? A hundred years from now, will the ecological fabric of the barrenlands will lie in tatters? Judging by your comment about “hordes of mosquitoes,” you seem to believe that the mining industry would be doing northerners a favor if it were to drain every lake in the Northwest Territories. But without mosquitoes, there would be no fish, no birds, no tundra.

A number of environmental organizations have stated that the BHP review was inadequate, and the panel ‘s weak recommendations are proof of that. What environmentalists fear is that this review will set a precedent for future mining projects in the north. If that is so, the federal government will have paved the way not only for BHP but for the eventual ransacking of one of the last great stretches of untamed land on earth.

Chris O’Brien

Yellowknife, N.W.T.

Editor’s note: Your comment that the kimberlite ore is harmful to fish deserves a response. The Northwest Territories has many kimberlites, perhaps hundreds, in the Lac de Gras region alone. Almost all these kimberlite pipes are under lakes. Yet, they have fish. We are also curious to know exactly what “genetically distinct” fish populations would be lost forever if these few lakes were to be drained.