[BCFSN] Trap Cropping May Offer Organic Growers an Alternative to Pesticides

Mon Aug 17 18:09:43 EDT 2015

HI All,

Please forward this message along far and wide within your circles. We have
alot of work to do to link the fishing, farming and communities impacted by
mining. The health and integrity of the whole food system is ultimately
interdependent on the healthy functioning of the Indigenous food systems in
the forests, fields and waterways.

I agree with the article that we have all been too complacent on this issue.

Dawn Morrison,

BC Food Systems Network
Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty
C/O 555 East 55th Avenue
Vancouver, B.C, V5X 1N6
Mobile: 778.879.5106
Email: dmo6842 at gmail.com
Website: www.indigenousfoodsystems.org

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ugo Lapointe <ugo at miningwatch.ca>
Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 9:48 AM
Subject: [BCMAN] New Study Indicates Increasing Mine Waste Disasters
Worldwide
To: BCMAN list <bcman at googlegroups.com>

New Study Indicates Increasing Mine Waste Disasters Worldwide – Industry’s
Culture Too Complacent Around Environmental Failures.

*Georgia Straight B.C., 7 August 2015, By Ugo Lapointe, MiningWatch Canada**,
**http://www.straight.com/news/504186/new-study-indicates-mine-waste-disasters-increasing-worldwide
<http://www.straight.com/news/504186/new-study-indicates-mine-waste-disasters-increasing-worldwide>*

A *new study
<http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/news/tailings-dam-breaches-increasing-in-frequency/1003696484/>*
reveals
that catastrophic mine waste failures are increasing in frequency, severity,
and costs all around the world. The authors point toward poor regulations,
poor practices, dicey mining economics, and ever larger mines as key
factors behind those disasters.

This dangerous trend needs to stop.

The study by Bowker and Chambers, *Risk, Public Liability & Economics of
Tailings Storage Facility Failures
<https://www.earthworksaction.org/files/pubs-others/BowkerChambers-RiskPublicLiability_EconomicsOfTailingsStorageFacility%20Failures-23Jul15.pdf>*,
found that nearly half of all recorded ‘serious failures’ happened in
modern times, between 1990 and 2010. It calculated an average cost of $US
543 million for the most serious spills, with some climbing well above $US
1.3 billion.

Since 1990, a dozen spills even resulted in loss of lives – over 380.

British Columbia had the largest mine waste spill disaster in Canada’s
history last year. Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley dam breached over 24
billion liters of mine waste – equivalent to 10,000 Olympic swimming pools
– into surrounding waters.

But what has changed since Mount Polley over a year ago? Not much. No new
regulations, no new laws, no new financial obligations to cover damages.
Only promises for which we are still awaiting concrete results.

Why is the mining industry incapable of learning from its biggest mishaps?
Why other industries, like the global aviation industry after a plane
crash, are able to turn around –sometimes in matters of days– and implement
immediate changes to prevent similar disasters?

Would we tolerate embarking an airplane or an elevator knowing there is a
good chance it will fail? Would we tolerate a major hydroelectric dam
failing? No. So why should we tolerate mining tailings dams to fail?

As observed by the International Commission on Large Dams: “tailings
facilities are probably the largest man-made structures on earth.” They
also contain some of the most toxic metals and substances to human health.

For decades now, mining companies have been in a downward spiral, competing
for mining more resources out of deposits that are of lower ore grades.

In this madman's race to the bottom, the size of mines and economies of
scale become increasingly crucial. Mines are becoming bigger, generating
larger volumes of waste, stacked into higher tailings facilities.

Mount Polley’s taillings dam, for example, was about 35 metres high before
it breached –equivalent to a 10-story-high building. The controversial KSM
and Red Chris mines recently approved in northern BC will have waste dams
twice as high.

Last year’s Mount Polley disaster and this *new study
<http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/news/tailings-dam-breaches-increasing-in-frequency/1003696484/>*
on mine waste failures call for major changes in the way the mining
industry is regulated in B.C. and around the world. *But they also point to
the urgent need to change the mining industry’s complacent culture around
environmental failures and disasters. *

*Comments like those we heard recently from both B.C.’s Mines Minister
Bennett and industry leaders, that tailings “accidents will happen,”
implying that not much can be done to prevent them, or to pay for their
damages, are unacceptable. *

This is precisely what the Independent Expert Panel that reviewed Mount
Polley’s spill told us in its January 2015 report
<https://www.mountpolleyreviewpanel.ca/final-report>: “The Panel does not
accept the concept of a tolerable failure rate for tailings dams. To do so,
no matter how small, would institutionalize failure.”

Much like the ‘zero tolerance’ cultural shift that took place –and that was
hard fought by mineworkers’ unions— around health and safety of mineworkers
in Canada in the 1970s, we also need to see a major cultural shift toward a
‘zero tolerance’ to environmental mine disasters.

All stakeholders -- governments, workers, communities, industry, investors,
and insurers, need to deploy the same kind of efforts they did to bring
down the rate of costly -- and deadly -- work injuries in the mining
industry.

Not many people realize that today’s rate of work-related injuries in the
mining industry is one of the lowest of all sectors in Canada, well below
the national average, and still going down.

Failing to prevent work injuries is not accepted anymore in the mining
industry; too costly, too deadly; “zero harm” is the goal. Why should it be
different for environmental hazards and disasters?

And just as much as much as mineworkers now have a right to say ‘no’ to
dangerous work places, affected communities and the public should also have
a right to say no to dangerous mines.

--

*By Ugo Lapointe, MiningWatch Canada**, **Georgia Straight B.C., 7 August
2015, * *http://www.straight.com/news/504186/new-study-indicates-mine-waste-disasters-increasing-worldwide
<http://www.straight.com/news/504186/new-study-indicates-mine-waste-disasters-increasing-worldwide>*

*See also:*

*- SIGN-ON: **Canadian Provinces & Territories Must Act To Avoid Mine Waste
Disasters
<http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/canadian-mines-ministers-conference-halifax-provinces-territories-must-act-avoid-mine-waste-dis>*

*- **Mount Polley mine disasters’ first anniversary is no reason to
celebrate, July 31st 2015
<http://www.straight.com/news/500331/mount-polley-mine-disasters-first-anniversary-no-reason-celebrate>*

*- **One Year In, Residents Remain Frustrated with Superficial Cleanup of
Mount Polley Mine Spill
<http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/carol-linnitt/mount-polley-spill-cleanup_b_7942054.html>*

*- **A ‘Massive Deposit’ of Mining Waste from British Columbia’s Mount
Polley Is Still Lingering
<http://www.vice.com/read/a-massive-deposit-of-mining-waste-from-bcs-mount-polley-mine-spill-is-still-lingering>*

*- **Mount Polley A Year Later, Common Ground, Rod Marining, August 2015
<http://commonground.ca/2015/08/the-mount-polley-disaster/>*

*- **B.C. Mining Code Review Welcome, But Needs Broad Scope
<http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/bc-mining-code-review-welcome-needs-broad-scope>*

*- And more online ‘Mount Polley’, ‘Mine Waste’, ‘Disaster’*

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