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Volume 20, No. 83
North Bay Resources releases gold mine tailings pond results Seeks $1 million to assess Mount Washington’s mineral worth By Drew A. Penner Echo Staff
Carol Molstad, chair of the Union Bay Improvement District.
School board settles Union Bay Improvement District lawsuit out of court School that couldn’t be used will now be sold back to district By Drew A. Penner Echo Staff School District 71 has agreed to buy back a school building and the land on which it sits from the Union Bay Improvement District for $55,000 less than the property was originally sold for, marking the beginning of the end for a messy legal dispute that frustrated municipal renewal efforts in the community. Improvement district administrators hailed the sale as a moment of rebirth, and hope it will mark a new chapter in their history. “I think it’s good news for Union Bay, because we can finally now begin to move forward and address some of the needs of the community - like a fire hall,” said UBID chair Carol Molstad. “I’m glad that the negotiation is over and that we’ve been able to work out a deal with the school district without having to go to court.” UBID officials launched a lawsuit against the school board over a condition on the property that prevents them from using it for anything other than educational purposes. They had moved their own offices into the old school facility and hoped to build a new fire hall on the land. UBID also sued their notary Margot Rutherford for not informing them of the educational requirement on the land. Russell Horswill, secretary-treasurer for SD71 said he’s glad the school board was able to reach an agreement with the improvement district.
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A replica of the Union Bay Elementary School is displayed on the second floor of the building, which opened in 1915. “This issue’s been going on for awhile,” he said. “We’ve worked closely with Union Bay to try to find a solution. “I’m glad it works out for both parties.” UBID purchased the land from SD71 for $675,000 in 2007. On Oct. 31 this year, SD71 will buy the land back for $620,000. “The purchase price was negotiated as a way to resolve the dispute,” Horswill said. “It represents the amount that the party thought was a fair resolution.” UBID didn’t believe the school board had the right to sell them the
property in the first place, and had requested reimbursement of the purchase price, as well as a number of related costs, through a notice of claim filed in BC Supreme Court. Molstad says they’ll keep more money by avoiding a trial, which had been set for early 2015. “I guess in hindsight if we’d known everything we know now we probably would have made a different decision,” she said of the original sale, adding she’s happy with the agreed upon lump sum payment. “We got about 3/4 of what we had initially asked for.” The Union Bay Elementary School
cost $6,300 to build and was completed in November 1915 with principal Paul Murray at the helm. The property in question is an amalgamation of three parcels of land, about one acre acquired in 1949 through a Crown grant, an adjacent one-acre lot from Canadian Collieries around the same time, and an additional parcel from a developer in 1977. Back in 1947 a notation was placed on the title, restricting use of the school site to school purposes and restricting its sale or transfer, according to the court documents. The resolution arises out of years of failed attempts to get the province to remove the trust condition that prevented UBID from proceeding with its plans for the parcel. UBID filed a separate lawsuit against Rutherford, who acted as notary public for the improvement district before the deal was completed in October 2007. “We’re still going to be pursuing Margot Rutherford,” Molstad said. “We’re hoping that there’s an opportunity there to recover some of the costs.” Rutherford declined to comment for this story. As of press time the third party action against Courtenay lawyer Paul Ives, who represented the school board in the 2007 sale, and his law firm Ives Burger, is still pending. School board officials confirmed they have not filed a motion to withdraw the accusations that he failed to notify them of the restriction on the property. (Continued on page 3)
A company that wants to mine Mount Washington for gold, silver, copper and other minerals revealed what is in the old tailings pond from the old mine on its property, which it hopes can be reprocessed to yield more wealth. North Bay Resources is seeking $1 million from investors to get a better handle on the extinct volcano’s hidden worth in a variety of locations around the mountain. Scott Dunbar, the head of the mining and engineering department at the University of British Columbia said rerunning the previous mine’s waste is an interesting idea. “There’s a lot of metal left in the tailings,” he said noting that this could actually have environmentally beneficially effects, considering it would deal with material that could have an adverse affect in the future if left untended to. “It could be an interesting growth business. The technology is there to do it.” On Tuesday, Sept. 23 North Bay Resources released a 288 page technical report about its Mount Washington Project authored by Nanaimo engineer Jacques Houle, which compiled previous information about minerals on its property and revealed new information about what exactly is in the tailings debris itself. In 2011 Houle noted there could be $5-10 million in metals in the tailings. This official resource estimate now indicates that out of 325,400 tonnes of material in total there is 241,625 tonnes at 0.119 grams/tonne of gold, 5.68 grams/tonne of silver, 0.098% copper, and 8.26 grams/tonne of tellurium. It also infers there is 83,775 tonnes at 0.119 grams/tonne of gold, 5.68 grams/tonne of silver, 0.098% copper, and 8.26 grams/tonne of tellurium. (Continued on page 2)
Tailings Pond (Image via Google Earth)
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