Community Organizes Against Proposed Hudson Bay Mountain Mine

In January 2005, people living here in Smithers, BC, learned that a company, Blue Pearl, wanted to start mining Hudson Bay Mountain. There's a seven-million-tonne deposit of molybdenum ore up here that was explored in the 1970s, but it never went into production.

The thing is, in the thirty years since then, land that was set aside for a tailings pond and processing plant was sold off and became housing developments. By 2005, houses had grown right up to the foot of the mountain, below the old mine site. A lot of people here drew their water from the slopes below it.

We felt something had to be done to make sure any mining was done right, and that water quality would be protected. So, several groups formed. For the whole Bulkley Valley, we had an umbrella group called Hudson Bay Mountain Neighborhoods. There was also the Lake Kathlyn Protection Society, because their members got water from Lake Kathlyn, right below the proposed mine site. Another was the Glacier Gulch Water Group, whose members shared a communal well on a small creek flowing from where the 1970s exploration work happened.

Blue Pearl needed to apply to the BC Environmental Assessment Office to build a mine. They filed a Notice of Work with the Ministry of Mines to do exploratory work and gather data. Because we were worried about the exploration's impact on water quality, the Ministry created a Public Liaison Committee, or PLC. This gave us continuous contact with the company and helped us understand their intentions.

We had a few chances to influence the mine's design and even delay the application's submission. We commented thoroughly on the draft Terms of Reference, which is like a table of contents for what the application had to include, and got a number of areas added. We also pushed for more and better baseline studies to document water quality.

One strategy that worked well was pursuing details. We asked regulators constant, detailed questions, which gave them a reason to pay more attention. We also asked why we weren't told in advance about activities. The company representatives in the PLC were always optimistic, essentially telling us to trust them, but we never did.

By April 2008, the company published an updated draft application, and it showed we hadn't influenced the mine's design. It was still in a community watershed, still involved 54 ore trucks daily, and the water treatment plant would still discharge into the Bulkley River. Our suggestions for conveyor systems or rail transport weren't taken. The main issue for us was the impact on domestic water users, and moving the mine would have solved that, but the company refused to discuss it.

Things really changed when the Mayor of Smithers called the project a disaster, using the phrase "the Right Mine." When the application was submitted, we felt we had to oppose it. With the Mayor on our side, we got a lot of publicity. We focused our campaign on water because it appealed to everyone in the Bulkley Valley. The mine's closure plan showed that as water filled the mountain, it would pick up metals like arsenic and selenium and flow into the groundwater. The company even applied for a discharge permit for water that was 10 times over drinking water guidelines. Our appeal for public comments was very successful, getting 213 individual comments.