Two months ago I posted a blog entitled, “Is Manitoba the Wild West for the Mining Industry?” where I mused about the responses from government departments regarding a water treatment plant failure at the Sherridon mine rehabilitation site that led to toxic water flowing into Kississing Lake for two days. All departments pointed me to Mines Branch, the department within Manitoba Innovation, Energy and Mines that deals with all things mining, and they uniformly agreed that this was solely a Mines Branch issue. Unfortunately, future correspondence has led me to believe that they aren’t equipped to deal with all of the ecological implications of an event like this.

Mines Branch did indeed agree that they were the department who was responsible and had this toxic dump under control. To see if that was really the case, I wrote back with some very specific questions about species counts, the impacts on fish-bearing waters, invertebrate counts, and how the project fits in the Manitoba Water Quality Standards, Objectives and Guidelines. Obviously, none of this falls under what Mines Branch works on.

In response, Mines Branch answered none of my questions, but rather comforted me by saying that they felt that “no measurable response in the aquatic community would be expected to occur over the comparatively short, two day duration of the release.” Coming from a department that is more often than not supporting projects that pollute our ecosystems, I do not think they are qualified to say that toxic chemicals and heavy metals have no impact when they are dumped into a lake. This sounds more like a question that should have been directed to Manitoba Conservation or Manitoba Water Stewardship or Environment Canada or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). Oh, but wait, all of those departments—except DFO, who didn’t respond—said that this was for Mines Branch to deal with. Clearly, they are dealing with it by making the foolish claim that dumping highly acidic water laden with heavy metals into a fish bearing lake had no effect.

I gave Mines Branch one more shot at answering my questions and asked if this was the final response from government about this issue. In response, I received a letter addressing some of my questions, but it was not from government, but from Wardrop, the company carrying out the rehabilitation project.

I am still waiting for an actual response from government, and I am only left to assume that Manitoba Innovation Energy and Mines is out to lunch. There are 13 ‘Director of Mines’ positions in the department, but how many people are on the ground looking after these issues? Who is safeguarding our wild spaces? Mines branch and the Manitoba government are demonstrating a disregard for true ecological protection of our wildlands, especially in our parks.

- Paloma