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FEBRUARY 5, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 16
Somewhere over the Rainbow is a lawsuit targeting the city claim filed by Edward Babcock and Sheila MacKenzie, who operate the 21-hectare farm beside the North A couple who owns a Westsyde Thompson River. farm allege a city planner engaged The claim sets out detailed allein a “crusade” to stop their agrigations beginning in 2010, when tourism development, according the couple applied to the city for to a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme a zoning amendment to convert a Court in Kamloops. barn into a building to hold special A statement of claim by the events, with a commercial kitchen owners of Rainbow’s Roost in on the second floor. Westsyde also alleges the City The claim said the couple submitted a professional engineer’s plans for construction of the kitchen. They later applied to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) for approval. Kamloops council gave three readings to Rainbow’s Roost is a 53-acre farm along the North a zoning amendment bylaw in mid-2011 and Thompson River in Westsyde. the commission later approved an application of Kamloops made unreasonfor a non-farm use for weddings, able demands after it had already reunions and special events to be approved their development. held at the farm. The lawsuit names the City of Early in 2012, according to the Kamloops, chief building inspector lawsuit, “for the first time, the adeKundan Bubbar and planner Maren quacy of fire protection was raised Luciani. It seeks damages and a by the city.” declaration by the city that special That came shortly before counevents at the farm are authorized. cil gave final reading and approved “During 2013 and 2014, Luciani the zoning amendment for the made it her personal mission to property. attempt to shut down the plainSee CLAIM A12 tiffs’ business,” said a statement of CAM FORTEMS STAFF REPORTER cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
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In the wake of the Mount Polley report, KGHM Ajax will study whether to return to its orignal plan for a dry-stack tailing pile. Currently, the plan is for tailings to be stored in a pond.
KGHM AJAX TO LOOK AT DRY-STACK TAILINGS OPTION CAM FORTEMS
STAFF REPORTER
cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
KGHM Ajax will conduct a “trade-off study” to determine whether it will return to a drystack tailings system for its proposed mine in wake of a report advocating the technology. The Mount Polley Review Panel report recommends B.C.’s mining industry adopt drystack tailings, what it calls bestavailable technology, that would ensure a dam breach cannot happen at a new mine. Clyde Gillespie, manager of project development for KGHM Ajax, told KTW the company committed to looking closely at the Mount Polley report in wake
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of the dam breach that flooded Polley and Quesnel lakes. “We’re revisiting our tailingsmanagement plan and revisiting whether dry-stack tailings is the best fit with Ajax,” Gillespie said. The technology is relatively new. It was proposed in KGHM Ajax’s first mine concept, which the company abandoned in order to move its footprint farther south and switch to a wettailings pond. KGHM’s original dry-stack tailing pile would have been visible from the Coquihalla Highway and also raised public concerns about dust. “Most commonly used in dry climates where economy in water consumption is important,
it has also been adapted to cold regions,” the Mount Polley report stated. “This method has been used since start-up of the Greens Creek mine in Alaska under conditions not unlike coastal B.C.” Gillespie acknowledged it will be expensive and time-consuming to conduct the trade-off study that will measure dry-stack tailings against the current plan to store tailings beneath a pond over what is today Goose Lake. Since the Mount Polley breach, there have been public concerns about a breach of the proposed dam that could lead to a wall of water down Peterson Creek and into downtown Kamloops. See ABERDEEN A11
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KAMLOOPS LOCATIONS!
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