2015 Compliance Inspection Concerns
The BC Ministry of Environment (MOE) recently published the 2015 figures for compliance inspections. This is the first time the results of inspection efforts have been published.
The report proves interesting reading.
The BC MOE completed 632 inspections in 2015, with only a 40% compliance rate. The report does try to address why the compliance rate is so low, suggesting that "the ministry is looking for problems".
Those found to be non-compliant face 3 different options.
The first response ( least serious) would be an Advisory or Warning, next an Order may be issued and finally a "referred for action".
The link above will take you to 2 different reports. The first is a document explaining the figures and how the inspection process works.
Pages 15, 16 and 17 refers to the profiles on each industrial sectors, however pages 16 and 17 specifically cover an overview of the mining inspections.
Mining and Coal have had 159 inspections in 2015, of which 40% were compliant- 63 inspections, the remaining 96 inspections were not compliant!
BC has 146 active mine permits held by 80 companies. 49 mines were inspected, some several
times.
The link above also has a MS excel document that list all the inspections for BC. The sheet allows you to filter by any of the parameters shown.
I have filtered down the document to Imperial Metal mines only.
I have made notes directly on the report, but here they are below.
Imperial Metals Mines- Huckleberry Mine, Mount Polley Mine, Red Chris Mine
Total 2015 Inspections on all mines = 20 of which 8 were at Mount Polley Mine
In Compliance = 6
Non Compliant= 14
In total they received 10 advisories, 3 warnings and 1 referred for further action.
Mount Polley Mine a
lone received 5 advisories, 4 were for effluent issues and 1 air issue.
Considering how recent the Mount Polley Mine disaster was, to have only 8 inspections in one year doesn't seem enough.
