The B.C. government is seeking aid from private industry to help turn a mountain of toxic waste into a molehill – or at least an environment more friendly to flora, fauna and human beings.

And since this mountain is on the road to the 2010 Winter Olympics, the timeline is taking on a certain urgency.

The province, in co-operation with Partnerships BC, has just closed a request for expressions of interest to clean up the contaminated water flowing from the Britannia Beach mine site using an acid water-treatment plant.

The government says it is interested in proposals to design, build, finance and operate a water- treatment plant at the former mine, located near Squamish on the Sea-To-Sky highway about 45 kilometres north of Vancouver.

Photos by Karen Dyer, Business Edge
The old mine site at Britannia Beach closed in 1974, but the metals continue to flow to the sea.

“In a situation like this one, it is important to move quickly and efficiently,” says George Abbott, the new minister of sustainable resource management, “and one of the ways to achieve that is by embracing public-private partnerships.”

Abbott may be new to the job, (he acquired his post in the January cabinet shuffle) but he is enthusiastic about the potential for this project.

“I think we’re going to emerge from this with a very attractive proposal which will build on the energies and expertise of both the public and private sectors,” he told Business Edge. “It will go a long way to remediating what I think is the largest point source of aquatic pollution on the West Coast.”

Britannia Mine has long been a blight on the landscape in the Sea-To-Sky corridor.

Once the British Commonwealth’s largest copper mine, it was abandoned in 1974 and has been a toxic problem ever since. Tailings remain in and near the waters of Howe Sound where they were dumped when the mine was active.

But the biggest problem is posed by acid-rock drainage, with copper, zinc and other minerals including arsenic running freely into local streams and the sound.

Local resident Pam Tattersfield praises efforts by the town’s owners to consult with the community over rezoning plans.

High concentrations of these minerals are not directly dangerous to humans, but play havoc with spawning fish and bottom-dwelling sea creatures such as oysters and mussels.

Last year, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund called Britannia “one of the worst abandoned mine sites in North America.” It said that more than 1,000 kilograms of copper and zinc continue to flow out of the mine every day into the waters of Howe Sound, a figure that is corroborated by the provincial government and equivalent to approximately four pennies-worth of copper every second.

Abbott and his ministry are only one part of a complex public-private partnership that is seeking an answer to this long-standing problem.

Partnerships BC is facilitating the process to look for a private contractor to design, build and run the equipment necessary for the clean-up.

“We are a company with the provincial government as our sole shareholder,” says senior communications consultant Mina Laudan.

“But we have an independent board, so we are slightly arms-length. We work with different ministries as clients to investigate ideas that might be good public-private partnerships.”

Working with the Ministry for Sustainable Resource Management, Partnerships BC is now evaluating six received expressions of interest to clean up the polluted water running out of the mine.

“We’re not free to divulge the names of the firms at this point,” Laudan says, “but we can say that they came from quality firms that have experience with this type of project.”

She added that the submissions came from companies in other Canadian provinces and internationally. Partnerships BC will narrow down the field to a shortlist of three companies, and a further request for proposals from these firms will be announced in April.

“We’re hoping to have a final agreement signed with a partner this fall, and anticipate a year of construction before the plant is up and running,” says Laudan.

Partnerships BC vice-president Steve Hollett says taxpayers won’t have to shoulder the entire burden of cleanup costs.

“The private-sector company will design, build, finance and operate this plant,” he says. “Every year they operate successfully, they will receive a performance fee based on the effectiveness of the project.”

Hollett notes that a large portion of the money used to cover costs comes from clean-up funds collected from companies that at one time or another operated the mine.

“We have approximately $30 million currently in a trust earning interest that will easily cover the capital costs as well as the operating costs of the project for several years,” he says.

Longtime Britannia Beach resident Pam Tattersfield says the journey towards the cleanup has been lengthy and convoluted, but steps taken over the past couple of years appear to be heading in the right direction.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have installed plugs – lumps of concrete, rock and earth – to redirect the flow of effluent away from the river and back into the mine. It is this effluent that is now running into the ocean and will be treated by the new project.

Tattersfield believes the plugs are working and local creeks seem to be regenerating to some degree.

“Naturally there is some fear of change,” she says, “but the mine cleanup is just a part of the changes happening here and most residents welcome it.”

The town of Britannia Beach has a checkered history. It has about 100 homes, evenly divided between houses and mobile homes. According to Tattersfield, the town and surrounding property – now owned by Britannia Bay Properties (a subsidiary of MacDonald Development Corporation) – went through the hands of four owners over the course of the previous year.

“We’ve been here 12 years, and since we’ve moved in, we’ve always rented with a maximum tenancy of 30 days. Never been able to get a lease. And there are folks that have lived this way here for 30 years, since the mine closed in 1974.”

However, she says that the developers of Britannia Bay Properties Inc. (BBPI) appear to be different.

“These guys will talk, will negotiate. They started consulting with us in October and they met with us every month prior to putting in the rezoning application.”

BBPI’s Jerry Bordian says that his company has had very little say in the process to build the acid water-treatment plant.

He notes that as mortgage holders, upon acquisition of the property BBPI turned over much of the land (including the mine) to the provincial government in order to focus its interest on the development and redevelopment of the residential areas.

Just a week ago, BBPI sought a rezoning application with the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District to subdivide the existing single parcel of Britannia townsite land into smaller lots.

While BBPI plans to build on 100 new lots, it is also proposing to sell the existing lots to current residents. So for the first time in nearly 30 years, residents such as Tattersfield will have the opportunity to own their own homes.

“We’ve always lived with the idea that the pollution has kind of been our friend,” Tattersfield notes.

“It’s allowed us to stay a long time in a beautiful place for next-to-nothing rent. But it’s gone on so long that people can’t believe that things are going to change.”