BC bans uranium and thorium exploration permits

Vancouver – The prospect of uranium mining in B.C. received a final blow as the provincial government moved to prohibit the chief mine inspector from issuing uranium and thorium exploration and development permits.

“This is a far as we need to go,” the B.C. minister of state for mining Gordon Hogg says in respect to banning the development of uranium and thorium projects in the province and matching mining and exploration regulations with its no-nuclear public policy.

The province has a long standing opposition to nuclear power and pursuant to that policy in April it decreed through a “no registration reserve” clause in the B.C. Mineral Tenure Act that any future mineral claims would not encompass rights to uranium and thorium.

“That basically said you could still go out and pay all your claims but any uranium and thorium would not be included in the claim,” Hogg says. “Those rights would be reserved for the province.”

But while the new regulation prevented individuals and companies from attaining those rights, it still left in limbo applications for uranium exploration made prior to April 24 when the “no registration reserve” policy came into effect.

Hogg says one project was under consideration by the province for a uranium exploration permit at the time: Boss Power‘s (BPU-V, BPUZF-O) Blizzard uranium project.

Then Boss Power, clearly unhappy about the province’s anti-nuclear stance, filed suit for damages through the Supreme Court of B.C. in what is a currently ongoing case.

Though the outcome of that case is unclear and Hogg could not comment on it, he agrees that this additional step to ban permitting of uranium and thorium exploration makes it clear to Boss Power that it will not receive uranium exploration permits.

Public perception appears to be the impetus for the B.C. government’s stance against the radioactive material and the main hurdle for proponents of nuclear power or uranium exploration and mining in the province.

“It has been the public perception that there is a challenge with respect to uranium and thorium so this (the ban on exploration) reinforces the public perception and the public expectation as well as the public policy that have all been in existence for a long, long time,” Hogg says.