Latest update: On Monday morning (Aug. 30), we published an update (below) with a statement from Dustin O’Leary, spokesperson for Atlantic Gold and Atlantic Mining NS, subsidiaries of the Australian company St Barbara that owns the open pit Touquoy gold mine in Moose River, HRM. O’Leary stated that “there is no leak of any kind […]
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 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 […]
Moose River betrayal
In 2008, the approval of the Moose River gold mine was conditioned on the mining company giving the province hundreds of acres of conservation land within four years; 12 years later, there's still no approved plan in place.
The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. On March 31, the Australian company St. Barbara, which last year acquired Atlantic Gold with its open pit gold mine at Moose River and a project to open three more mines along Nova Scotia’s Eastern shore, sent investors a COVID-19 update. It stated: St Barbara’s […]
Atlantic Gold is waging a propaganda blitz in Nova Scotia
By now, many people in Nova Scotia will have seen the Atlantic Gold ads on television, read words of self-praise from the company in newspaper opinion pieces, or received Atlantic Gold flyers in their mailboxes. For the past month or so, Atlantic Gold has been blanketing the province with its propaganda. As the Halifax Examiner […]
The province issues tough new orders to Northern Pulp
Wednesday afternoon at 3:59 PM an email landed in my inbox. It was from Nova Scotia Environment and it was short, even terse: Environment Minister Gordon Wilson has issued a ministerial order to govern how Northern Pulp must conduct its orderly shutdown of the mill, today, Jan. 29. The ministerial order and terms and conditions […]
Deciding Northern Pulp’s future
A tangled mess of dubious science, loans, and liabilities will determine how government officials will act in coming days — and how much it will cost Nova Scotians.
Nova Scotia’s business minister Geoff MacLellan says it’s not the time to talk about all the money that Northern Pulp owes the province, and it won’t be until after environment minister Gordon Wilson makes his decision on the mill’s new effluent treatment facility on or before December 17. CBC reporter Michael Gorman notes that MacLellan […]
Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions
Cover photo: “Point D,” where treated Northern Pulp wastewater currently flows from Boat Harbour into the Northumberland Strait, just a few hundred metres from Pictou Landing First Nation. There is much to wade through in the documents Northern Pulp submitted to Nova Scotia Environment on February 7, 2019, when it registered its “Replacement Effluent Treatment […]
Containing Northern Pulp’s mess
A half century of toxic waste in Boat Harbour, a leaky pipeline, and what happens next in the mill saga.
The numbers are staggering. Over the past 51 years, the bleached kraft pulp mill on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County has piped about 1.25 trillion litres of toxic effluent into Boat Harbour.[1] That’s enough to fill about half a million Olympic-size swimming pools, or a pipeline one metre in diameter stretching about 1.6 million kilometres, […]