Placer mining kills fish, damages streams, poses a risk to drinking water and jeopardizes Indigenous rights, but the activity is virtually unregulated and brings little money into government coffers, says a report urging B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer to conduct an audit of the province’s failure to adequately regulate placer operations.

“Placer mining — the practice of mining for gold in and near streams and riverbeds — is expanding across B.C.,” the report states. “The province allows prospectors to stake claims in private property, salmon watersheds and Indigenous lands, leaving local communities to cope with potential mercury contamination and other hazards.”

The report, written by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre on behalf of the Fair Mining Collaborative, concludes that B.C.’s current regulations cannot prevent or mitigate harm caused by unregulated miners.

“Placer mining offers little in economic return to offset the environmental damage,” the report says.

A spokeswoman for Bellringer’s office said the request will be considered along with numerous other audit suggestions, and added that, if accepted, audits can often take more than a year from the day they are started.

“We aim to make the best use of our resources and choose audits with the greatest value to government and the people of B.C.,” Colleen Rose wrote in an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

The report’s authors, Calvin Sandborn, Environmental Law Centre legal director, articled student Renata Colwell and law student Erin Linklater, believe the problems with placer mining are causing health and environmental problems and are hoping for quick action.

“We are saying it’s urgent,” Sandborn said.

“This is an expanding industry. The large machine operations have almost tripled since 2005 and so it can’t be ignored any longer. We have to figure out how we can regulate this. There are a lot of jurisdictions we can learn from — starting with the Yukon.”

While the Yukon has rigorous rules, in B.C., hand-panning or using hand tools with a sluicer or shaker box — an activity that has more than doubled since 2005 — has little government oversight or tracking.

Miners do not have to obtain Water Sustainability Act authorization to excavate waterways. Adequate setbacks from stream banks are not enforced and some placer mines discharge tailings directly into streams instead of settling ponds.

Miners that use machinery for the excavation have little more regulation, apart from a requirement to apply for a Notice of Work permit.

An environmental assessment is triggered only if they have production capacity of more than 500,000 tonnes a year — a threshold so high that it excludes almost every placer mine in the province.

The Fair Mining Collaborative could not find a single record of a B.C. placer mine undergoing a federal or provincial environmental assessment since the mid-1990s although at least 50 environmental assessments a year are triggered in the Yukon.

“…it’s urgent.” https://t.co/avr4aueDXO

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 17, 2018

Tara Lamothe-Ammerlaan, Fair Mining Collaborative program manager, said about 550 open permits have been issued for placer mines in B.C. annually for the last three years and, while not all are active, they all have permission to mine.

“For the most part, they operate in or near riparian areas, which are arguably the most valuable ecosystems in a landscape. We need to have some kind of regional environmental assessments that set parametres around how much mining activity is compatible with First Nations plans for their territory and with healthy and resilient ecosystems,” she said.

Lamothe-Ammerlaan said another major problem is the free entry system that allows anyone to stake a claim for a minimal fee and miners then have rights — even if it is private property, an important ecosystem, an area important to First Nations or if land-use plans conflict with the mining plans.

Last year, Bev Sellars, chair of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining, illustrated how easy it is to stake a claim by staking the Cranbrook property of then-energy and mines minister Bill Bennett.

The report says regulation of placer mining is rooted in hopelessly outdated 19th century gold rush laws and some damage is historical, such as the 58-million cubic metres of sediment added to the Fraser River between 1858 and 1909, but modern mining is now stirring up sediment and dangerous substances such as mercury.

Other major problems started more recently, such as the deregulation of creeks around the Atlin area in 1985, allowing direct discharge into streams, after placer miners successfully lobbied their MLA.

The lack of regulation has resulted in sky high levels of aluminum which jeopardises the health of Taku River Tlingit First Nation members and other Atlin residents who use Atlin lake as a drinking water source.

“It’s an environmental law-free zone,” Sandborn said.

“Someone should let the fish know.”

Placer mining can kill fish by introducing sediments and metals into the water and improper excavation destroys spawning grounds, says the report, which uses numerous studies to support its claims.

A 1992 study found that unmined streams “support a standing stock of fish 40 times that of placer-mined streams.”

While the environmental damage mounts, B.C. sees little economic return with the province collecting only $253,248 between 2008 and 2015 on more than $50 million in reported gold sales.

“Since operators are taxed per mine, individual operators may pay no tax, even if they are producing more than $50,000 of gold a year across multiple mines,” the report says.

Lamoth-Ammerlaan believes the report has built a strong case for an audit by documenting the lack of regulation and the high environmental stakes.

“The government collects very low royalties on the gold that placer mines extract from our rivers and streams,” she said.

“I think this industry, with its significant potential for environmental harm and recorded gold sales tanging between $2 million and $15 million per year over the past decade, is perfect for this kind of scrutiny.”

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Hundreds of placer mines, which have never undergone environmental assessments, are operating in the Fraser River watershed with minimal government oversight despite mounting evidence that the operations pollute water and harm salmon, a report by the Fair Mining Collaborative has found.

Placer mining involves digging up gravel adjacent to streams and rivers and washing it to extract the gold or other minerals in the sediment. In addition to mines that use excavation equipment, there are thousands of hand-mining operations, many of which do not have permits, the report found.

The report, commissioned by First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining (FNWARM), calls for a moratorium on claim staking and work permits until the process is reformed and adequate safeguards are put in place, with First Nations given a partnership role in coming up with rules and regulations.

“I go around our territory and see all the destruction in the back country. It’s criminal if you ask me,” Bev Sellars, FNWARM chair and former chief of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation, said in an interview.

Ideally, the practice should be stopped, but at the very least, it should be monitored and cumulative effects considered, she said.

Amy Crook, Fair Mining Collaborative executive director, agreed the concerns are broader than direct pollution from the placer mines.

“Because placer mining is hardly monitored, its impacts are not factored in when major mines are assessed and given limits on the amount of effluents they can introduce into water systems,” Crook said.

“We need to know how the combined impacts affect the river system and fish and those who depend on them.”

The report, titled “The New Gold Rush,” found 300 to 350 placer mines have held a permit to operate in the Fraser Watershed since 2014 and there is no record of a placer mine ever having undergone an environmental assessment — even though the Cohen Commission noted placer mining has the potential to have severe impacts on sockeye salmon.

“This is our lifeblood. It is being poisoned and we need action now,” said Sellars, noting there is a new surge of interest in placer mining, which means increased risk.

It has been proved that increased sediment levels harm salmon and suffocate eggs laid in streambeds, says the report.

“One study found that placer-mined streams have 40 times fewer fish than unmined streams,” it says.

FNWARM wants to see environmental assessment laws updated with regulations to include the effects on salmon, cumulative affects and assessments of sensitive habitats.

The trigger for an environmental assessment in B.C. is annual production of more than 500,000 tonnes — resulting in no environmental assessments during the past decade. In contrast, in the Yukon, where there are a variety of triggers, there were 84 assessments of placer mines in 2015/2016 and 592 during the past decade.

Unmonitored Mining Pollutes Fraser, Threatens Salmon: Report https://t.co/M4q4Fep8xl #bcpoli #bcelxn17 #indigenous #mining @fairminingca pic.twitter.com/sJN41alp58

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 26, 2017

The Fraser River watershed is also littered with old mines, some dating back to the 1800s gold rush, which are likely continuing to pollute the water, but have never been assessed, according to the research.

Historical records show that from 1858 to 1909, placer mining added an estimated 110 million tonnes of tailings to the Fraser’s sediment load.

“This is more than seven times the amount of solid sediment released (into the Quesnel watershed) by the 2014 Mount Polley mine disaster,” the report says.

The ease with which someone can stake a claim is alarming and regulations desperately need to be updated, said Sellars, who proved her point earlier this year when she staked a claim on the Cranbrook property owned by former energy and mines minister Bill Bennett.

“I had never seen his property, but I was able to go online and, within an hour, I had a claim on his private property. It cost me about $120,” said Sellars, who will retain the claim for a year.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said, pointing out that claims are constantly being made on First Nations territory.

To stake a placer mine claim, a free miner’s certificate in needed, for a cost of $25, and an online map is then used to stake the claim.

About one-quarter of B.C.’s land base is open for placer mineral claims and more than 7,700 claims are currently registered, covering about 400,000 hectares.

Various private websites promote placer mining and the site B.C. Placer has the headline “The B.C. Government WANTS You To Mine Gold.”

“The laws, fees and inspectors in B.C. are generally very friendly towards individuals and small operations,” it says.

An earlier Fair Mining Collaborative report, released last month, questions why the B.C. government is allowing such environmental destruction when financial returns are minimal.

In 2015 the province collected an estimated $64,965 in royalties, while placer miners who filed mineral tax returns reported gold sales of $12,982,931.

A recent paper by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, concluded that, not only do inspectors rarely visit placer mines, government rules, such as the 10-metre setback from streams are often ignored.

An Environment Ministry audit found that less than half of the mines inspected were obeying the setback and only one of 26 mines inspected was carrying out the required reclamation work, said the ELC report.

“The limited audit actually discovered that three mines operating in critical fish habitat areas were actually mining in the stream itself,” said the ELC report, which recommended a judicial inquiry into the province’s mining regulation, including placer mine rules

Bennett has since dismissed the call for a public inquiry, saying the province has already strengthened mining rules, compliance and enforcement and an inquiry would be “demonstrably redundant.”

Photo: Fraser River by Dru! via Flickr

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