In March 2020, the Halifax Examiner published the award-winning series, “Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy.” The three articles (available here, here and here) looked at Clayton Developments’ proposed new and massive subdivision for Port Wallace in Dartmouth, and serious concerns about the mercury and arsenic contamination from […]
Public paying the price to clean up old gold mines
Anaconda Mining says the province indemnified it from any liabilities associated with the toxic historic tailings in Goldboro, and plans to mine around them, while Nova Scotians pay to clean them up.
The gold rush in Upper Seal Harbour near Goldboro began with the discovery of gold in 1892 by a fellow named Howard Richardson. For the next 65 years, gold miners dug rock out of the earth in what was known as the “Richardson Belt” on the banks of Gold Brook Lake in Guysborough County. […]
Anaconda Mining joins the gold rush on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore
Part 1. What do we know about its plans for a new open pit mine in Goldboro (and haven't we been here before)?
Gold exploration and mining companies are lining up to get at Nova Scotia’s gold, as the province undergoes a fourth gold rush. In 2017, Atlantic Gold opened the province’s first-ever open pit gold mine in Moose River, with plans to open three more along the Eastern Shore, in what it peddled to investors as its […]
Millbrook First Nation to Atlantic Gold and government regulators: “We oppose the Beaver Dam mine project”
Millbrook First Nation Chief Bob Gloade knows that his band has no veto power over a new open pit gold mine planned for Beaver Dam, just a stone’s throw from a Millbrook satellite community in Halifax Regional Municipality, but he is hoping the project can be stopped through consultation. That way, he says, there will […]
The “Right to Know” in Nova Scotia often goes right to “no”
It’s almost “Right to Know Week” in Nova Scotia, but that doesn’t mean that access to information in the province is something to celebrate, as a recent freedom of information request illustrates.
In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series about the state of the public’s “right to know” in Nova Scotia, the focus is on what happened when the Halifax Examiner submitted a Freedom of Information (FOIPOP) request to the province about whether it would agree to protect the French River watershed — the water […]
Provincial budget update: increased surplus and debt reduction, but also large bills for cleaning up historic toxic mines and the Yarmouth ferry
“You’re richer than you think” Scotiabank used to say in its marketing campaign to prospective customers. Today we learned the Province is in better financial shape than we were led to believe a year ago. Audited financial statements for the year March 2018–March 2019 show the province had a surplus of $120 million, four times...
Spill at Moose River gold mine raises environmental concerns
Atlantic Gold springs an effluent leak, plugs a new mine, and sells itself to investors
Cover photo: the tailings facility at the Touquoy gold mine. Photo: Saint Mary’s River Association Atlantic Gold’s manager of environment and permitting, James Millard, calls it a “spill” or a “loss of control” caused by a “gasket failure.” By whatever name, the event happened on the night of January 3, 2019, at the company’s open […]
Halifax councillors should tell city staff to stop dithering and adopt a living wage policy already
Morning File, Monday, January 28, 2019
News 1. Blackface Last Monday, some Dalhousie students protested at the welcoming reception for incoming interim president Peter MacKinnon. As I noted Tuesday, the students were particularly riled over MacKinnon’s book, University Commons Divided: Exploring Debate & Dissent on Campus, which included a section that downplays and excuses the wearing of blackface while mischaracterizing and sidelining those who object […]
Fool’s Gold
Nova Scotia's Myopic Pursuit of Metals & Minerals
A Halifax Examiner / Cape Breton Spectator investigation. Part 1: Welcome to the Gold Rush There’s a 21st century gold rush starting in Nova Scotia, just as industrial gold mining is increasingly coming into disrepute around the world. It has been described as an “environmental disaster” which often leads to contamination of water sources on […]