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by Mike Caswell

Prosecutors have filed criminal charges in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Imperial Metals Corp. over the failure of the tailings dam at its Mount Polley mine. The charges, announced by the B.C. Conservation Officer Service on Tuesday, Dec. 10, arise from violations of the Fisheries Act. The sections at issue deal with depositing harmful substances in water frequented by fish.

The charges come over 10 years after the failure of the tailings dam at Mount Polley, an open-pit copper-gold mine near Williams Lake, B.C. On Aug. 14, 2014, earth below a section of the dam's perimeter slipped. This led to an embankment collapsing, and a subsequent release of tailings. As a result of the failure, the mine was shut down for just over a year.

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service has not spelled out the details of the allegations against Imperial Metals, but it cites violations of the Fisheries Act that relate to depositing a "deleterious substance of any type" in water that is frequented by fish. The tailings dam failure spilled material into nearby Polley Lake and other bodies of water. These included the Cariboo River, a spawning ground for salmon.

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