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Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 4. The provincial government has taken over control of the Port Wallace 'special planning area' to fast-track development, but what about toxic tailings in Barry’s Run and other risks to the area?

April 13, 2022 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Politics, Province House Tagged With: affordable housing, Allison Clark, arsenic, Barry's Run, Brynn Budden, City of Lakes, Clayton Developments, climate change, contaminated sites, Dartmouth, Deborah Bayer, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, Doug Skinner, Executive Panel on Housing in HRM, Forest Hills Extension, gold mining, Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), health risk assessment, Highway 118, history mine tailings, housing, human health risk assessment, Ikea, John Lohr, Joshua Kurek, Krista Higdon, Lake Charles, Lake Mic Mac, Lake Williams, mercury, Mic Mac Mall, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Mitchell's Brook, Montague gold mines, Mount Allison University, Nova Scotia Lands, Port Wallace, Port Wallace Holdings, Sam Austin, Shannon Park, Shaw Group, Southdalte Mount Hope special planning area, special planning area, The Parks of Port Wallace, Tim Houston, Tony Mancini, Tracy Barron, traffic congestion, Waverley Road

Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 2: the suburb proposed to be built in the shadow of Montague Gold Mines 

March 2, 2020 By Joan Baxter 5 Comments

This is a story about the toxic legacy from historic gold mines in Nova Scotia, which its citizens will be paying many millions of dollars to try to clean up, and how the contamination at just one of these sites — Montague Mines in HRM — is still affecting us today.  This, the second in […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: AECOM, Barry's Run, Blue Chip, Brian Palmer, CAO Jacques Dubé, Clayton Developments, councillor Shawn Cleary, councillor Tony Mancini, Doug Skinner, Frank Whebby Limited, gold mining, Lake Charles, Lake Loon, Marina Hamilton, mine tailings, Mitchell Brook, Montague Mines, Paul Morgan, Port Wallace, Richard Butts, Shaw Group, Shubenacadie Lakes, Shubie Park, toxic tailings from historic gold mines, w. Eric Whebby Limited, watersheds

Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 1: The making of a toxic mess and the uncalculated costs of previous gold rushes.

March 1, 2020 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

This is Part 1 of a three-part story about the toxic legacy from historic gold mines in Nova Scotia, which its citizens will be paying many millions of dollars to try to clean up, and how the contamination at just one of these sites — Montague Mines in HRM — is still affecting lives today, […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Alexander Heatherington, arsenic from mining, Atlantic Gold, Barry's Run, Canadian Extractive Industries Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), Clayton Developments, Cochrane Hill gold mine, Damas Touquoy, Department of Energy and Mines (DEM), Department of Lands and Forestry (DLF), Francis Paul, gold mining, gold mining pollution, Goldenville, James Paul, John Drage, John Hartlen, John Pulsiver, Kerry Rowe, Lake Charles, Lake Loon, Linda Campbell, Lisa Jarrett, mercury, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), Mitchell Brook, Montague Mines, Moose River gold mine, Nova Scotia Auditor General Michael Pickup, Nova Scotia Lands, Paul Paul, Raymond Plourde, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, St. Barbara Limited, Touquoy mine

PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Two young white women, one with dark hair and one blonde, smile at the camera on a sunny spring day.

Episode 79 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Grace McNutt and Linnea Swinimer are the Minute Women, two Haligonians who host a podcast of the same name about Canadian history as seen through a lens of Heritage Minutes (minutewomenpodcast.ca). In a lively celebration of the show’s second birthday, they stop by to reveal how curling brought them together in podcast — and now BFF — form, their favourite Minutes, that time they thought Jean Chretien was dead, and the impact their show has had. Plus music from brand-new ECMA winners Hillsburn and Zamani.

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

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