The shuttering of a proposed mining project in Northern Ontario should make funding available for a federal joint panel review of KGHM’s Ajax project, according to a Kamloops group opposed to the proposed copper and gold mine south of Aberdeen.
The Kamloops Area Preservation Association said it is approaching Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Cathy McLeod to push for re-allocation of funding from the Marathon platinum and copper mine, which was proposed for north of Lake Superior.
On Oct. 31, the federal government announced it would disband the joint panel review after proponent Stillwater Canada Inc. indicated it would not proceed on the project.
The copper and platinum group metals mine was proposed about 10 kilometres from the town of Marathon on the Trans-Canada Highway.
“They could allocate the funds here,” KAPA director John Schleiermacher said. “We need a panel review and the money is there. Get it done.”
A panel review is the highest level of environmental assessment, with an independent panel overseeing hearings and reporting finding to government.
The Conservative government has consistently rejected the call for a panel review of Ajax, opting to continue with the harmonized federal-provincial comprehensive environmental assessment.
Schleiermacher noted Kamloops council has twice passed resolutions asking for a panel review.
“We have a town [Marathon] with a population less than 4,000, 10 kilometres from the city,” he said.
“They were appointed a panel review.”
Ramsey Hart, program co-ordinator with MiningWatch Canada, said the panel review for the Marathon project was triggered by a plan for tailings to be dumped into a lake home to lake trout — a conservation species in Ontario.
That plan was later amended, but concerns remained about surrounding wetland habitat.
Bureaucrats from within the federal Ministry of Environment and Department of Fisheries and Oceans recommended the joint panel review for Marathon.
“There’s many other projects equally as risky,” Hart argued. “I think the Ajax project is a good example.”
Hart said joint panel reviews are typically triggered by some combination of bureaucratic concern and public alarm, rather than on facts such as size or proximity to population or critical habitat, for example.
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