In mid-May, Laird Brownlie, head of external affairs for Australia’s St Barbara Ltd that acquired Atlantic Gold and its mining operations in Nova Scotia in 2019 for $722 million, sent out an email — a “special bulletin” — about the company’s proposed modifications at its Touquoy open pit gold mine in Moose River. Brownlie’s message […]
Atlantic Gold’s imaginary conservation land
In 2008, Atlantic Gold was given provincial approval for the gigantic Touquoy open pit gold mine with the condition that within 4 years the company buy and give the province nearby land for conservation purposes. 13 years later, that condition is still unmet, and the province is making no real effort to enforce it.
Atlantic Gold has just announced that in “late spring/early summer 2021” it will be undertaking a new Class 1 Environmental Assessment for modifications to its open pit Touquoy gold mine in Moose River. Among other things, the company wants to expand its waste rock storage area that is already sky-high, prepare to store tailings in […]
Atlantic Gold plans to mine “paradise”
Citizens near Beaver Dam and Moose River raise the alarm about the high environmental costs of open pit gold mines in eastern Nova Scotia, the province’s “sacrifice zone.”
Debbie Marlborough lives just 15 kilometres as the crow flies — 50 kilometres by road — from the giant crater, massive tailings pond, and mountains of waste rock at Atlantic Gold’s Touquoy open pit gold mine in Moose River. She’s never been able to make herself go and see it. Marlborough says that even though […]
Sacrificing wild Atlantic salmon for gold
A project that is undoing environmental damage from acid rain finds itself under threat from a gold mine proposed for Beaver Dam.
We’re standing on the snow-covered banks of the Killag River beside the lime doser, a white silo that has been calibrated with intricate controls to apply just the right amount of lime into the river every day. Edmund Halfyard, a biologist working with the Nova Scotia Salmon Association, tells me that the “right amount” — […]
Atlantic Gold’s lobbying blitz
The company is now in court on charges of harming the environment, regulators are casting a wary eye at its plans for future environmental protection, and investors are getting worried, so Atlantic Gold has hired a lobbyist to fast track federal approval of its Nova Scotia projects.
Last year it was a propaganda blitz. For several weeks in the spring of 2020, Atlantic Gold, which operates an open pit gold mine in Moose River in the Halifax Regional Municipality and wants to open three more along the Eastern Shore, bombarded people in Nova Scotia with its PR. Atlantic Gold’s owner, Australia’s St […]
Atlantic Gold is going to court
The St. Barbara Limited company is facing 32 environmental charges, even as more complaints roll in.
Just over a month after the construction company contracted by Atlantic Gold to excavate clay for the tailings facility at its open pit gold mine at Moose River assured Krista Gillis of Mooseland that the excavation work wouldn’t cause any more sedimentation in a nearby brook, it has happened again. On Saturday, January 17, Gillis […]
Nova Scotia has laid charges for 32 environmental infractions against Atlantic Gold
Citizens raise concerns about environmental impacts of gold mining in Nova Scotia's moose country.
Much attention is focused on Crown land in Digby County that is threatened by logging operations. And last week, nine people from Extinction Rebellion were arrested while trying to prevent contractors in the employ of the WestFor consortium from accessing the public forest and moose habitat slated for cutting. But in another part of the […]
Survey says: Why are people calling me with pro-mining propaganda?
It looks as if someone is getting a little nervous about the growing backlash to the latest gold rush in the province, and to the development of new open pit gold mines along the Eastern Shore, particularly the proposal by the Australian company St. Barbara, which acquired Atlantic Gold in July last year for $722 […]
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 […]
Like blood from a stone: trying to get information out of the Department of Energy and Mines
Late last year, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Derek Mombourquette, penned an op-ed that his department sent out to the media. As I mentioned in Morning File on January 16, 2019, the opinion piece was entitled “A little piece of Nova Scotia, everywhere,” and it claimed that the province’s mining industry was “something we can all take […]