Dramatic video of Mount Polley mine tailings spill

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      The Cariboo Regional District has posted this video of the tailings spill at Imperial Metals Corporation's Mount Polley mine.

      On Monday (August 4), the Vancouver-based company reported the breach of a dam at the tailings pond at its copper and gold mine in central B.C.

      Today (August 5), Imperial Metals said the dam has been "stabilized" but the cause of the spill remains unknown.

      "Exact quantities of water and tailings discharged have yet to be determined. The tailings are alkaline with an average ph of 8.5 and are not acid generating," the company stated.

      According to the regional district, people and livestock should not drink the water in the Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek, and Polley Lake areas as well as the "entire Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers systems right to the Fraser River".

      "Boiling will not help. Swimming and other activities along the rivers are at your own risk," the CRD stated.

      Shares of Imperial Metals were down more than 41 percent on the TSX, at time of writing.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      russ

      Aug 5, 2014 at 12:37pm

      Think the future Pebble Mine might be a disaster? The real Pebble Mine disaster is happening now as the worst case toxic mine spill has just occurred in British Columbia. In what is surely one of the world's largest environmental catastrophes the massive spill is taking place just as the largest number of salmon in all of history, 72 million sockeye alone, are entering the Fraser River.

      The spill dwarfs the toxic mine waste spill in Hungary in 2010.

      25% of the Fraser sockeye must now swim through the spill, or die trying in the course of the next few weeks. http://russgeorge.net/2014/08/04/fishpocalypse-now/