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Atlantic Gold is going to court

The St. Barbara Limited company is facing 32 environmental charges, even as more complaints roll in.

January 20, 2021 By Joan Baxter

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...

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Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Subscribers only Tagged With: Adele Poirier, Atlantic Gold, Atlantic Mining NS Inc, carbon neutral, climate change, climate emergency, Dartmouth Provincial Court, DDV Gold, Dustin O’Leary, Environment Canada, Fifteen Mile Stream mine, Guysborough Journal, heavy rainfall, Kip Keen, Krista Gillis, Lake Charlotte, Moose River Consolidated Project, Moose River gold mine, Nova Scotia Environment (NSE), Rachel Boomer, rainfall records, S&P Global, Scraggy Lake, Seloam Brook, Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area, St. Barbara Limited, tailings management facility (TMF), Tangier Grand Lake Wilderness Area, Touquoy mine

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.

December 23, 2020 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured Tagged With: 15-Mile Stream, Atlantic Gold, Atlantic Mining NS, Beaver Dam, Betty Belmore, biodiversity, Bob Bancroft, Caribou, Cochrane Hill gold mine, Dave Gunning, Deborah Bayer, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Department of Lands and Forestry (DLF), Dustin O’Leary, Eastern Shore, endangered species, erosion, Extinction Rebellion, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, James Millard, Krista Gillis, Mitchell Glawson, moose, Moose River, Moose River Consolidated Project, Moose River gold mine, Mooseland, Mooseland Road, Nature Nova Scotia, Northern Pulp, Northern Timber, Nova Scotia Environment (NSE), proposed Beaver Dam mine, Rachel Boomer, salmon, Save Caribou group, Scraggy Lake, sedimentation, Sherbrooke, St. Barbara Limited, St. Mary's River, Touquoy mine, trout, Veronica Chisholm

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.

April 3, 2020 By Joan Baxter Leave a Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Investigation, News Tagged With: Atlantic Gold, Barbara Markovits, coronavirus, COVID-19, Dustin O’Leary, Eastern Shore Forest Watch Association, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), Health Protection Act, Marla MacInnis, Maryse Belanger, Minister Mark Parent, Moose River gold mine, pandemic, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), Rachel Boomer, social distancing, St. Barbara Limited, Touquoy mine

Atlantic Gold is waging a propaganda blitz in Nova Scotia

March 25, 2020 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Atlantic Gold, Bruce Hudgins, Darrell Dexter, Dustin O’Leary, Historic Mine Tailings Management Plan, historic mines tailings sites, John Perkins, John Wightman, Maryse Belanger, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Moose River gold mine, Rachel Boomer, Ronald Hawkes, Spur Resources, St. Barbara Limited, Steven Dean, Teck Resources, Touquoy mine, Wally Bucknell

The province issues tough new orders to Northern Pulp

January 31, 2020 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour Effluent Treatment Facility (BHETF), Brian Hebert, Environment Minister Gordon Wilson, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier Stephen McNeil, Rachel Boomer, William Palmer

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.

December 8, 2019 By Joan Baxter 5 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Brian Hebert, Chief Andrea Paul, Colton Cameron, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Health Canada, Jim Vibert, Kathy Cloutier, Keith Doucette, Michael Gorman, Minister Geoff MacLellan, Minister Gordon Wilson, Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Northern Pulp closure, Northern Pulp focus report, Northern Pulp loans, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier G.I. Smith, Premier John Hamm, premier John Savage, Premier Rodney MacDonald, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Rachel Boomer, SaltWire, Transport Canada

Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions

March 5, 2019 By Joan Baxter 9 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Bell Bay Tasmania, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), Canso Chemicals, Chief Andrea Paul, Clean the Mill Group, Dave Gunning, Dillon Consulting, dioxins and furans, Dr. John Krawczyk, Environment Minister Iain Rankin, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Gary Porter, Greg Egilsson, Gulf NS Herring Federation, Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA), Jamie Simpson, Kathy Cloutier, KSH Consulting, mercury, Mi’kmaq Conservation Group, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Nova Scotia Environment, oxygen delignification system, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Harbour, Pictou Landing, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Point D, Rachel Boomer, Terri Fraser, Toxikos

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.

November 3, 2018 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

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, […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Nunn, Chief Andrea Paul, Chief Dan Paul, Christine Skirth, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, GHD, Kathy Cloutier, Ken Swain, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp cleanup, Northern Pulp effluent leak, Nova Scotia Environment, Nova Scotia Lands, Pictou County, Pictou Landing First Nation, Rachel Boomer, Stephen McNeil, Sydney Tar Ponds, William Palmer

Kersplash: there goes tidal generation

Morning File, Tuesday, August 14, 2018

August 14, 2018 By Tim Bousquet and Jennifer Henderson 9 Comments

News 1. Emera withdraws from Cape Sharp Tidal This item is written by Jennifer Henderson. Emera is out of the tidal power business in the Bay of Fundy, at least for now. The parent company of Nova Scotia Power (and the North American energy conglomerate with $29 billion in assets) announced yesterday it was withdrawing […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Brett Ruskin, Cape Sharp Tidal, Cassie Williams, Christian Richard, Emera, Fredericton shooting, Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), Grant Thornton, GreenUnivers, Kevin Bissett, Laurent Schneider-Maunoury, Michael Tutton, Minister Derek Mombourquette, Morgan Lowrie, Naval Energies, Nicole Thompson, Oceans Supercluster, Open Hydro, Patricia Laurent, Rachel Boomer, Renewables Now, reporting ranks in New Brunswick, Samantha Bayard, Stacey Pineau, Steve Hennigar, Tufts Cove oil spill, Vincent Groizeleau

Fool’s gold

Nova Scotia's Myopic Pursuit of Metals & Minerals (Part 2)

May 23, 2018 By Joan Baxter 3 Comments

A Halifax Examiner / Cape Breton Spectator investigation. This is the second in a series of articles on the push for mines and quarries in Nova Scotia. You can find Part I here. Going for gold The CEO and chairman of Vancouver-based Atlantic Gold Corporation, Steven Dean, a man with a history of international coal and […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Alastair Tiver, Anaconda Mining, Andrew Bell, arsenic from mining, Atlantic Gold Corporation, Atlantic Mining NS, Barbara Markovits, Bruce Nunn, Chrissy Matheson, Cochrane Hill mine, coronet Metals, councillor Steve Streatch, Darrel Dexter, DDV Gold, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Dufferin gold mine, Eastern Shore Forest Watch Association, Emergency Response Assistance Plan (ERAP), Fifteen Mile Stream mine, Fool’s Gold part 2, Forrest Higgins, Gary Burrill, Goldboro gold mine, James Millard, Jamie Kneen, Joan Baxter, Marla MacInnis, Mayor Bill Mills, miners’ rights, Mining Watch Canada, Minister Charlie Parker, Moose River, Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (UARB), Oceanic Iron Ore Corp., proposed Beaver Dam mine, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), Rachel Boomer, Resource Capital Gold Corp., Scraggy Lake, Steven Dean, tailings water, Tom Ellard, Touquoy mine, transporting cyanide, Wayne Oakley

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The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Mo Kenney. Photo: Matt Williams

Episode #18 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Mo Kenney’s new record Covers is a perfect winter companion — songs from across the rock spectrum that she’s pared down to piano or guitar and turned them into sad ballads. She joins Tara to talk about choosing and arranging them, and opens up for a frank discussion of the alcohol dependency it took a pandemic for her to confront. Plus: Movies are back (again).

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to The Tideline.

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.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

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