Read our 2020 update here.

Read our special report here.

Wildlands League raised concerns during four public consultations (2004-2007) associated with the review of the mine and with one associated with the review of the Permit to Take Water (a provincial permit administered by Ontario). Our primary concerns included:

1. That the mine was approved in the absence of a comprehensive land use plan that laid out a long term vision for the area that balanced conservation and industrial activities;

2. That the regulators hastily and prematurely concluded that the project would have ‘no significant adverse environmental effects that could not be mitigated’ on woodland caribou, a species classified as threatened. The regulators, for example, allowed the proponent to rely on unproven mitigation strategies such as increasing habitat for moose as a measure for mitigating impacts to caribou.

3. Impacts on aquatic systems and fish. The uncertainty about the chemical composition of the pit water, the impacts of dewatering on the water quality of the Attawapiskat River, the impacts of dewatering on carbon in the peatlands, and the extent of drawdown of the surrounding rivers, tributaries and water table reinforced to us the need for a more precautionary approach to this project and greater scrutiny through a more comprehensive environmental assessment process.

Moreover, a project such as this had never been undertaken in muskeg of the Hudson Bay Lowland before, several of the proposed mitigation measures were untested and experimental, and the regulators accepted the claimed effectiveness of these measures without independent verification or proper third party review.

In 2007, Wildlands League, with the help of independent experts, submitted input into the public process regarding the Permit to Take Water. We articulated additional concerns with the proposed dewatering of the muskeg, the underestimation of predicted mercury releases as a result of dewatering the muskeg and the gross underestimation of the predicted methyl mercury impacts (a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates in the food chain). As a result of our participation and others, the Ministry of the Environment put fairly good conditions on the permit including a requirement for monitoring.

This permit was up for review in 2013 and Wildlands League weighed in by reviewing several of the reports including monitoring data that we have been able to get access to. We provided further commentary to its reposting in July 2015. In September 2015, we learned that the permit was renewed in spite of several persistent unresolved reporting failures by the company. We put forth 6 recommendations. You can read them here.

From the information we have secured to date, we are gaining a clearer picture of the challenges of mining in the Hudson Bay Lowland to aquatic systems and fish. We have questions and are seeking answers from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. Unfortunately adequate answers are not forthcoming yet. The public needed assurances that the mine was meeting its monitoring conditions and that Ontario is providing proper oversight. We didn’t get them.

How we can trust Ontario to get it right in the Ring of Fire and in the broader region when they can’t get a permit right for a single project?