This week marks one year since the Mount Polley tailings pond spill
Posted August 3, 2015 9:37 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
LIKELY (NEWS 1130) – The pictures were devastating; the anger and heartbreak of people in a Cariboo community was palpable, even from a distance.
This week marks one year since many people’s lives were turned upside down and their futures in Likely were put in jeopardy by the breach of a dam at Mount Polley Mine.
Randy Kadanoga and his wife own Likely Lodge on Quesnel River, which is near the lake that mine waste poured into. He’s very happy with the clean-up efforts, saying he feels Imperial Metals is doing all it can.
Kadanoga is supportive of the mine getting back up and running.
“I think they’ve done an excellent job up there. We’ve taken a drive by; we’ve gone on a couple of tours. I’m really pleased with what Mount Polley has done. And they’ve been very responsible for what they’ve done and they’ve done a really good job.”
That’s an attitude he senses many people in the community share, but adds there have been some major challenges. After the breach, they didn’t know what the future would look like or how to make plans.
“The hard part was to overcome some of the negative feelings about this area. That was the hard part,” explains Kadanoga.
Realizing they can’t depend on the mine to bring people in, Kadanoga had to work with others in the community to figure out how they would attract tourists, “to encourage fishing in other lakes… Quesnel Lake and Quesnel River have cleaned up quite well.”
His lodge is on the river and is about one kilometre away from the lake. The lake runs into the river.
Kadanoga points out there is more to Likely and the areas around it than Quesnel Lake, and there are other things to do that don’t involve the lake. He and others in the community are lobbying for a change that would allow them to advertise snowmobiling and ATV-ing on the Gold Rush Trail.
The provincial government has said full remediation will take decades.
Imperial Metals finished the first phase of those efforts last month, working to make sure water running into Quesnel Lake is up to provincial standards, and on stabilizing a creek.
