| Abstract/Description or Keywords |
Two hard rock mineral mines are proposed for the Stikine River Watershed: the Galore Creek Project and the Schaft Creek Project. The proposed Galore Creek Project is located between the Stikine and Iskut Rivers and Highway 37 in northwestern British Columbia. Galore Creek flows northward to the Scud River, a tributary to the Stikine River. The Stikine River is an important transboundary system that supports 19 fish species, including all 5 species of Pacific salmon. The Galore Creek deposit contains copper, gold and silver; current estimates for mine production are 5.9 billion pounds of copper, 3.7 million ounces of gold and 40 million ounces of silver over the 20-year life of the mine. The proposed filter plant and ore concentrate loading facility is located near the Iskut River, near the confluence with More Creek. The projected mine life is 20 years. The proposed Schaft Creek Project is located approximately 60 km south of the village of Telegraph Creek in the upper Schaft Creek watershed. Schaft Creek drains to the north into Mess Creek, a tributary to the Stikine River. The Schaft Creek deposit is a polymetallic (copper-gold-silver-molybdenum) deposit; mineral claims cover approximately 20,932 ha. The current mine plan describes an open pit, mined at the rate of 100,000 tonnes per day with a projected mine life of 23 years. The deposit will be mined with large truck/shovel operations. The ore will be crushed, milled and filtered on site to produce separate copper and molybdenum concentrates. At the end of the project, the mine pit will encompass an area of 4.9 km2 and extend 330 m below the current elevation. The project will generate over 812 million tonnes of tailings. An access road will be constructed from the Galore Creek road. This document presents a review of the environmental effects monitoring programs for the proposed Galore and Shaft Creek mines. The review is divided into four sections. The first section presents the history of mining in the Stikine River Drainage and historical data on water quality, hydrology, fish and wildlife. The second part of the report examines the environmental baseline reports for the Galore Creek proposed project. Data gaps are identified and an analysis of the appropriateness of sampling methods is presented. Baseline data appear adequate to describe pre-mining populations of fish and wildlife; however, the water quality data were not collected with sufficient frequency or through the range of low and peak flows. Samples during peak flows, in particular, are minimal or missing. Studies of metals concentrations in fish and shellfish were limited to muscle tissue. Most metals are found in organ tissues, not muscle. Therefore, these data should not be used to establish baseline conditions. Fish and shellfish should have been sampled for whole body concentrations of smaller species and discrete organ concentrations for larger species. This section also presents a risk assessment for potential mining activities in the Galore Creek watershed and for discharges from the proposed filter plant to the Iskut River watershed. Predictions for water quality downstream of the mine and from the filter plant discharge suggest that water quality objectives will be maintained and that there will be minimal or no added metals to the receiving waters. However, a monitoring program that includes water quality of both the discharges and receiving waters is necessary to confirm predictions. The review then examines the environmental baseline reports for the Schaft Creek proposed project. Both the water quality and the hydrology data contained errors—analytes were mislabeled in the 2008 data and dates were wrong in the 2007 hydrology data. These errors in the data, along with data gaps and an analysis of the appropriateness of sampling methods are presented. Reports of studies on metals concentrations in aquatic species were not available. Included is a risk assessment for potential mining activities in the Schaft Creek–Mess Creek watershed. The risk assessment should be considered preliminary because much of the raw data has not been verified and many data reports are not yet available. The water management report, a critical component to predicting downstream effects, is not yet available. Therefore, the risk assessment is limited to identifying possible sources of metals input to receiving water and preliminary plans for water management. The final section of the report presents an Environmental Monitoring Plan for the affected watersheds and for the lower reaches of the Stikine River in Alaska. Important factors for monitoring are identified, detailed sampling methods are given along with sampling frequency and recommended numbers of sample replicates. The emphasis of the Environmental Monitoring Plan is to provide for long-term monitoring with methods that are defensible, cost-effective and will produce valuable information about the stream conditions. The Monitoring Plan includes suggestions for quickly identifying unexpected increases in metals input. |
