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Gypsum Co. submits Focus Report
(Fall 2009)
UPDATE (Feb. 4th, 2010): Received today from NSE:
"Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau has approved the Miller's Creek Mine Extension, today, Feb. 4, with some conditions.
CGC Inc. - Fundy Gypsum has received approval for the project subject to conditions to protect the environment, including limiting the size of the extension to about 105 hectares. The company had proposed to develop 347 hectares.
The decision also includes conditions such as:
-- extensive monitoring of surface and groundwater
-- developing a wetland compensation plan
-- establishing a community liaison committee
-- legally protecting a 46-hectare conservation area within four years
-- creating a program to monitor rare plants in the conservation area
-- developing a plan to reclaim the land affected by the mining operation
-- creating a protection plan to protect plant species
-- studying the area to gather information on local bats
-- creating a plan to fully protect places in the area where bats may go
The minister's decision and the conditions of the environmental assessment approval are on the Department of Environment's website at www.gov.ns.ca/nse/ea/millers.creek.gypsum.mine.asp"
According to a report in the Chronicle Herald (Feb. 4th), a company offical commented: "They are all operating parameters under which any responsible mine should be operating anyway." However, in response to queries from Howard Epstein at the NS Standing Committee on Economic Development, Sept 2000, a Georgia Pacific official commented: "I would be surprised if you would see any more gypsum quarries developed in Nova Scotia forever ..It is difficult to find a deposit of any size that is outside of a watershed or outside of a municipal population". Headwaters ARE off limits to truly responsible enterprises if not to Fundy Gypsum and, apparently, our current and previous provincial governments!
UPDATE (Jan. 2010):
A decision is due by Feb. 5, 2010. View the impressive documentation by local residents and their supporters in response to the mine proposal on the APWPS website.
Fundy Gypsum's proposed strip mine in the centre of the Avon Peninsula would destroy a region of high biodiversity and undermine sustainable livlihoods in the area.
Fundy Gypsum submitted its Focus Report (a revised environmental assessment) for a proposed strip mine on the Avon Peninsula to the N.S. government on October 16, 2009. The documents are available on the NSE website. (The Avon Peninsula is bounded to the west by the Avon River, to the south by the St. Croix River, to the north by the Kennetcook River; it lies across the Avon river from Windsor.)
Fundy Gypsum, a subsidiary of United States Gypsum Company, registered its initial proposal in February, 2008. There were many reservations expressed to then Minister of Environment of Mark Parent by residents, scientists and the public at large. He requested follow-up studies by Fundy Gypsum; their response is the Focus Report.
Public comments on the Focus Report will be accepted until November 23, 2009.
The Minister of Environment/N.S. government will then make a decision on whether to
- allow the mine (subject to specified terms and conditions and any other approvals required by statute or regulation);
- require an environmental-assessment report;
- not allow the mine,
The proposed mine is situated in the centre of a forested, upland "watershed commons" on karst landscape which, to date, has protected the water supply for rich farmland, residents and small industries on the Avon Peninsula. It also supports an unusual diverse flora, small wetlands with rich amphibian and reptile populations and at least one bat hibernaculum.
The flora includes ram's head lady's-slipper (red listed and legally protected under the N.S. Endangered Species Act. ), round-lobed hepatica (red-listed) black ash (yellow-listed) eastern leatherwood ( red listed), yellow lady's-slipper (yellow listed ), thimbleweed (yellow-listed). Canada buffalo-berry (yellow-listed ) and three rare lichens (Solorina
saccata, Collema cristatum var. cristatum and Leptogium lichenoides).
The area has long been of special interest to naturalists in Nova Scotia. Earlier this year, the Halifax Field Naturalists. the Nova Scotia Wild Flora Society and botanists Sean Blaney and Ruth Newell endorsed citation of the Avon Peninsula as the Lady Slipper Capital of the Maritimes. That title will hardly be tenable if the mine goes ahead.
For some background and perspectives on the area and the proposed mine, see
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