Uranium Days Over In BC, Again

VANCOUVER– The prospect of uranium mining in B. C. received a final blow in March, as the provincial government moved to prohibit the chief mine inspector from issuing uranium and thorium exploration and mining permits. The ban dashes Boss Power’s (BPU-V) hopes of developing its controversial Blizzard uranium project.

It is the second time the province’s antinuclear stance has killed the project. The Blizzard property, 49 km southeast of Kelowna, was extensively drilled in the late 1970s before then-premier William Bennett imposed a moratorium on uranium and thorium exploration and mining in 1980.

That moratorium lasted seven years and after it elapsed, with the price of uranium relatively low, potential development of the province’s uranium and thorium resources ceased to be a high-profile issue.

But a resurgent price of uranium in recent years has sparked interest in B. C.’s uranium assets again and led the provincial government, in deference to both its own no-nuclear power policy and the perceived anti-nuclear sentiment among some of B. C.’s citizens, to revisit the ban on uranium and thorium exploration.

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

“It has been the public perception that there is a challenge with respect to uranium and thorium, so this 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.

The province had already last April decreed, through the addition of a “no-registration reserve” clause in the B. C. Mineral Tenure Act, that it would withhold rights to uranium and thorium on any future claims.

But the regulation still left in limbo applications for uranium exploration made prior to April 24, 2008, when the 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 Blizzard project.

Then Boss Power, clearly unhappy about the province’s antinuclear stance, filed suit in the Supreme Court of B. C., alleging expropriation.

Hogg declined to comment on the ongoing case.

However, Boss Power president and CEO Randall Rogers says the province misled it in the days leading up to the no-registration reserve. Further, he argues that the province’s uranium ban amounts to expropriation, and that Boss Power deserves compensation.

“The thing that makes this really egregious is that through the spring of ’08 leading up to April, we’d actually consulted (with the province) saying, ‘we’re about to put in our exploration work orders’,” Rogers says. “And they said, ‘Yup. You’ll get the usual treatment for your applications for work.'”

Following those consultations, Boss Power submitted an application for a diamond-drilling program at its Blizzard project on April 21, 2008.

Rogers says the company had planned to twin holes drilled on the property in the 1970s that formed the basis of a historical resource estimate pegging Blizzard’s uranium resource at 2.2 million tonnes grading 0.214% U₃0₈.

But three days after it filed the application, the province issued the new regulations.

Unsure if the ban applied to Boss Power, Rogers says the company met with Minister Hogg’s predecessor, Kevin Krueger, on May 8, 2008, “and he said, ‘Oh yeah, the ban applies to you. Too bad, so sad. Perhaps we can discuss compensation.'”

Rogers says Krueger told Boss Power to put together a proposal for compensation to submit to the ministry.

Jake Jacobs, a spokesman for Krueger, says the now-minister of community development would not comment on the uranium and thorium ban since the file is now Hogg’s.

Subsequently, Rogers says efforts to get compensation “went nowhere,” so on Oct. 16, Boss Power filed its lawsuit.

Initially, Rogers says Boss Power wanted one of two things to happen: either to be issued permits to drill at Blizzard or to receive compensation for the loss of its uranium and thorium rights.

But in an apparent contradiction to Rogers’ account of what then-minister Krueger told him — that the April 24 ban applied to Boss Power — the government filed a statement of defence which said that the ban did not apply to Boss Power at the time, so it could not have expropriated the company’s property.

In that statement, the government argues that because its no-registration reserve addressed only future claims, it did not apply to Boss Power.

To which Rogers responds: “Then where the heck are my work permits?”

At this point, however, with the outright ban issued through an order-in-council, the question of going ahead at Blizzard is moot.

“With the order-in-council clear — no work permits — our lawsuit is in fact strictly for compensation for expropriation,” he says.

A hopeful Rogers says he believes the province will settle, calling the anti-uranium stance vis–vis the government’s stated mine-friendly policy “a bit of an albatross around their neck.”

He suggests that the uranium in the ground at Blizzard might have been worth as much as $700 million, based on a uranium price of about US$50 per lb U₃0₈.”Our claim could be considerable based on those numbers,” he says.