From the Friday, June 17, 2005 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
A Canadian mining company is poised to exploit "fast track" environmental regulations to establish a mine in the northern reaches of the Flathead River system, well before Montana's environmental concerns are ever addressed.
Cline Mining Corp. recently filed a "material change report" under Canada's securities laws, announcing plans to apply for a small-mine permit for a mining site in the Foisey Creek basin, a tributary of the North Fork of the Flathead River, by the end of this year.
Montanans concerned about mining in the Canadian Flathead had been under the impression that Cline intended to pursue a large-scale mining permit, which would require a lengthy environmental review process. The small mine permit involves far fewer requirements.
"The small-mine permit is the fast-track approach," said Steve Thompson, the Glacier field representative for the National Parks Conservation Association. "It's basically a shell game. They launch the mine, build the infrastructure under a small-mine permit, get production going and turn around and immediately begin the process for developing it into a large mine."
The small-mine permit limits extraction to 250,000 tons of coal per year. To obtain the permit, Cline must submit an "internal" environmental review without any required public involvement process.
The process is "superficial nonsense," according to David Thomas, a Fernie City Council member and communications director for the Canadian conservation group Wildsight.
"It's very clear what the strategy is here," Thomas said. "The government is in collusion with the mining companies on this. By eliminating the need for environmental assessments for small mines, the companies can go in freely and disturb all the land they need to, and then pursue a large-scale mine."
The province's regulations for large mines do indeed require a much more involved environmental assessment process that can take up to two years to complete.
Read the entire article . . .