Ecuador court gives green light for Silvercorp, Salazar’s El Domo project
The ruling removes the last major obstacle for the $250 million project, located 150 km northeast of Guayaquil.
The BC government has allowed an expansion to the Quinsam Coal Mine on Vancouver Island.
Energy and Mines Minister Rich Coleman said at the annual Roundup mineral exploration conference in Vancouver that Hillsborough Resources Limited has been granted a Mines Act amendment permit.
The mine produces half a million tonnes of thermal coal a year and is BC’s only underground coal mine. It has been in operation since 1986. The application calls for extraction of 1.7 million tonnes of coal over four years.
The mine expansion has been years in the making and comes with a long and troubled history, reports local community newspaper Campbell River Courier-Islander:
Quinsam Coal initially applied for an open pit mine, but shelved the idea in late 2007, saying it was not feasible. Opponents had argued the mine’s continuing failure to control the release of sulfates into the Quinsam River watershed was reason enough to stop the expansion.
The company came back with an application for a new underground mine called 7 South, and for former open pits to be flooded with waste materials. Opponents have long maintained that the mine continually fails to meets its own waster permit standards, the Courier-Islander reported, and expansion should not be allowed to proceed until the mine can control its existing effluent.
2 Comments
Edlewis87
Good we need more gob openings in Vancouver!!
ABH
Edlewis87: There is actually coal under Vancouver… but it’s not economic to mine now that there is a city above. If you want a job in mining there are more positions out there than they can currently fill. They may not be in Vancouver, but many will fly you straight from Vancouver to the mine, and back again at the end of a 2 weeks shift. The oil sands also do some of the same thing. Plenty of work out there. Spend a couple of years in the field, then get a corporate job back in a cushy office in Vancouver.