Worst environmental mess in N. America (in BC) finally cleaning up.

[StoneMtn]

Government and Epcor to clean up Brittania Mine water for discharge

Jun, 05 2006 - 5:00 AM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell and Environment Minister Barry Penner will today unveil a new water treatment plant that will capture and remove heavy metal pollution from the historic Britannia Mine site.

Developed as a public private partnership with Epcor, the facility is a vital part of the government's overall environmental remediation effort for the site.

Bell is pleased about the success of the P-3 partnership, "This is a great example of a P-3 partnership with an independant operator. People can rest assured that we're gonna have high quality water being emitted from the plant for the long term future. It is an efficient way of removing metals and acid leeching from the waters of Brittania Beach and it will clean up Howe Sound on a permanent basis."

The announcement is due to be made at 10 this morning at the Britannia Mine site north of Vancouver.

Link

[Blane]

Nice, a company is allowed to pillage our landscape, make a shitty mess out of it, and then they ask the taxpayer to kick in and help clean up after them. Then they have the gall to talk about how wonderful these "P-3" (read: gov't subsidized) partnerships are.

[StoneMtn]

Blane:

I am very leery about these P3 partnerships, and in fact I've been actively lobbying to keep one out of Whistler, where they want to take over our sewage treatment plant. (I'm not the only one making this effort, and I expect that the privatized plant will not become a reality, as a result.)

In the case of Britannia Beach, though, the fact is there have been heavy metals leeching into Howe Sound for decades, and it's been deemed the worst environmental contaminant in the continent, and now it's being cleaned up. At this point, I'm not going to nitpick about who is actually in charge of the cleanup, as long as it's finally being done.

[Blane]

I agree Corey, but it's just so frustrating to see how industry plays off gov't when they are in shit, and then whines that they're being obstructed by gov't when things are going well.