Water board to Breakwater: Pay up or else

Nanisivik water licence could be cancelled, NWB warns

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

The Nunavut Water Board warned the owner of the Nanisivik Mine last week that it may cancel the company’s water licence if it doesn’t put up a $17.6-million security bond and file an emergency response plan.

CanZinco Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Breakwater Resources Ltd. received a new water licence from the Nunavut Water Board in October 2002.

That licence sets out the rules that CanZinco must follow in doing an environmental clean up of its lead-zinc mine at Nanisivik, which ceased production on Sept. 30.

Those rules include two key conditions: the posting of a $17.6-million security bond, and the submission of a new emergency response plan.

Philippe di Pizzo, the water board’s administrative head, said CanZinco was supposed to have posted the money sometime in December.

And he said that at a meeting in Yellowknife last week, water board members expressed concern about not receiving any reports from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development that could tell them whether or not DIAND is doing anything to enforce the licence.

“The board is worried that the licence is essentially useless if there is no enforcement,” di Pizzo said.

The water board’s letter warns that, at a proposed public hearing in Arctic Bay this May, the board may try to cancel Breakwater’s licence.

“[T]he Board may be forced at the next proposed hearing to consider its terms of reference to be an application under section 43(1)(c)(iii) of the Act, which is to cancel the licence in the public interest,” the Jan. 23 letter says.

A copy of the letter has been sent to Robert Nault, the minister of Indian affairs and Northern Development.

As for the emergency response plan, that was supposed to have been filed by Dec. 18, di Pizzo said. It would have replaced an obsolete plan that was developed when the mine was fully operating.

The company will, however, deliver some other reports on time: a second environmental site assessment, a human health risk assessment and an underground solid waste disposal plan.

These reports contain crucial information that governments need to decide on the future of the Nanisivik town site.

Share This Story

(0) Comments