The longest-germinating coal project in the Northeast is back on the table. On July 15, the clock for the 180-day application review period for the proposed Sukunka Coal Mine resumed.
The review period was paused on January 21, 2015 after 164 days to give Glencore—the current proponent for the mine—time to “resolve outstanding issues related to caribou and water quality.”
In 2018, Glencore sent a letter to the Environmental Assessment Office to let them know that they had, in their opinion, met all the issues required.
A second suspension was issued on August 23, 2018 to give Glencore time to create a report in conjunction with the First Nations Independent Technical Review (FNITR) on the impact of the mine on caribou, which was finished on December 16, 2021.
That report should have triggered a restart of the application review, but Glencore has asked for a pair of 60 day extensions, after which the remaining 16 days of the timeline would resume.
The latest—and apparently last of these—was issued on May 16, to allow further discussions and analysis related to caribou.
This means the review period will expire on August 1, 2,749 days after the 180 day process started.
Once that happens, a public comment period will be held in August on the draft materials, which include the draft assessment report and proposed environmental assessment conditions that would be applied to mitigate potential adverse effects of the project, should it be granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate.
While the current iteration has been in the works since 2013, the Sukunka Mine has been under consideration for at least 50 years. It was the first mine to be considered in the Northeast, but with the formation of the Northeast Coal project, mines were built at Bullmoose and Quintette instead.
If the project is approved, it will have a mine life of more than 20 years, initially producing 1.5 million to two million tonnes of coal a year, with the possibility of scaling production to six million tonnes a year.
In 2015, the project failed to get its BC Environmental Certificate, and significant concerns were raised, much of that around the mine’s location in prime caribou habitat.
And some people are concerned about growing rates of selenium in the Peace region.
Over the last decade, there have been increased concerns over selenium coming from the mines in Southeast BC, and people are looking to see what sort of impact the toxic chemical is having here.
Previously, the project was being spearheaded by Xstrata before they merged with Glencore in 2013.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
