Ajax mining company a daunting adversary

Kamloops is on the brink of the biggest environmental war this community has ever seen. When — which is more likely than if — it breaks out, it will ally the cutoffs-and-sandals enviros with homeowners and everyday activists against the Big Corporation.

The “enemy” is the KGHM Ajax copper-and-gold mine planned for the backyard of Aberdeen, and it is no small adversary.

After years of research and months of lobbying local politicians and business groups, the corporation took its message to the public this week at an open house and forum.

There were about 400 people in the room — the same number as the long-term jobs that would be created at the mining operation. There were clorplast statements about benefits and consultation, but the ones people gathered around were the maps and aerial photos that illustrated the massiveness of the project, along with its huge tailings pond and waste dumps.

The scale is impressive; to many, it’s frightening. It will come within a couple of kilometres of upper Aberdeen, and a lot closer to some rural property owners.

Such an endeavor doesn’t come without noise, pollution and other environmental impacts.

Last year, the enviros used marches, placards, letters to the editor, rallies and histrionics to drive out another project they didn’t like — a cogeneration plant that would have been built by the Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp.

ACC president Kim Sigurdson fled town after months of being demonized and finally confronted by a raging crowd at a public meeting.

But there’s a big difference between a guy who had some blueprints and a couple of government grants, and an environmental permit, and a multimillion-dollar outfit such as KGHM.

Sigurdson is from Winnipeg, and he lives there today, still looking for a community to accept his technology. He runs his business out of his basement.

KGHM has been around for 45 years and is one of the largest producers of gold and silver in the world, trading on the London and Warsaw Stock Exchanges. It employs 18,000 people. Thirty-two per cent of it is owned by the Polish government.

It’s in an expansion mode. And it has been through all this before. When somebody stands up at a public meeting and questions whether there’s really a demand for more copper mines, it’s not exactly going to send this company scurrying for the bushes.

KGHM knows all the questions, and it has answers. It has a public-relations strategy and the people to carry it out.

Sigurdson refused to hire PR help, or even to engage the local public about his project until it was too late. KGHM is ahead of the game.

Still, it’s not a done deal. The mine has legislative hoops to go through. Community support, or at least acquiescence, is important.

City council will have to weigh 1,000 short-term and 400 long-term jobs, along with a potential taxation windfall, against the vision of what it wants Kamloops to be.

The temptation to cash in on the lolly from this mine will have to be balanced against the costs of industrialization.

The city’s business organizations will have to weigh their premise that jobs and growth are always good with the overall good of their community.

There will be a drastic alteration to the rolling grasslands and forest south of our city if this mine becomes a reality. A coalition of environmentalists and average citizens — with or without business leaders and City Hall — could prove a formidable guerilla force.

But KGHM is no ACC, and it isn’t going to quietly leave town just because not everyone wants it here.