A Vancouver company is once again seeking government approval for a coal mine near Buckley Bay, much to the dismay of environmental groups and shellfish growers in Baynes Sound.
Compliance Energy Corp. has re-applied for an environmental assessment certificate for Raven Coal Mine nearly two years after its first attempt fell short.
The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office now has 30 days to screen the application, before deciding whether to reject it a second time or order a more detailed, 180-day review.
The company never made it past the initial screening in May 2013 because regulators wanted more information, documents show.
“We always said we would re-submit, so we’re not doing anything that we haven’t said before,” company president Steve Ellis said Tuesday. “We’ve answered all the questions that the government and the working group asked. Whether it meets all the government criteria, we’ll know in about 30 days.”
Roberta Stevenson, executive director of the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association, said her members remain staunchly opposed to the project. “That coal mine is five kilometres from B.C.’s most lucrative shellfish growing region,” she said. “We just don’t believe the two can co-exist. I represent 150 businesses and they’re very professional, but they just say no to this.”
Stevenson said her industry already faces the negative effects of global warming, ocean acidification and urban runoff without having to worry about possible contamination from the Raven mine.
“We have enough issues,” she said. “To put a coal mine on top of everything else is just really adding insult to injury.”
Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee said the Raven mine also poses a serious risk to wildlife, watersheds and riparian zones and Vancouver Island’s profitable tourism industry.
If the project makes it to the 180-day review period, the Wilderness Committee plans to mobilize its volunteers, he said. “We want to solve these issues so that we don’t have to go to the blockade a year or two down the road,” he said.
“So we’re going to be organizing town halls. We’re going to have online tools and public meetings to basically flood that public comment period.
“We believe the majority of people don’t want to see this project go ahead and our job is to help them raise their voice on this.”
Compliance Energy states on its website that the Raven mine, if approved, will extract up to 1.1 million tonnes of coal per year during peak production. Trucks, or possibly trains, will carry the product to Port Alberni for shipping to steel-making markets in Japan and South Korea.
The company said in 2012 that the project would contribute $1.1 billion to local economies and create about 350 full-time jobs in the Comox Valley and Port Alberni over the 16-year life of the mine. Another 200 jobs will be created during construction, the company said.
