Where the hell is the Ajax mine, anyway?

Even though there’s nothing technically wrong with KGHM Ajax trying to set up private meetings with City council candidates, the company was smart to call the whole thing off.

As you will read elsewhere in today’s Daily News, the corporate brass decided the process had quickly become tainted by news coverage.

Well, this is politics — did the KGHM Ajax brain trust expect they could keep those meetings a secret, or that nobody would care?

As good as it might be at building and operating mines, this international conglomerate probably needs to review its strategic communications plan.

It’s entirely typical, though, that a proponent of a sensitive project would try to get the ear of local politicians. The only thing really different about this one is that it comes just as an election campaign is about to get underway, and that it includes people who aren’t yet elected.

In advance of public hearings on rezonings, for example, developers often try to corner City councillors in hopes of getting their blessings.

The theory is that if a politician privately indicates support, he or she is not going to betray that commitment when it comes time to vote. A smart City councillor, though, will be a good poker player, reserving an open mind until it’s time for the hands to go up. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

In the case of the mine, the whole thing looked on the surface like meddling in a process that should be open. So, KGHM Ajax blinked, then backed off. It’s the first indication the company pays much attention to such things.

Meanwhile, figuring out where the mine is located seems to be a work in progress. Last summer, you might recall, KGHM Ajax consultant Knight Piesold identified the site as being 10 kilometres from town, which the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office dutifully posted on its website. The City, and others, asked that it be corrected, but it took some time until it was done.

As it turns out, that wasn’t the end of it. It’s been brought to my attention that a draft of an application for an enviro assessment put together by Knight Piesold perpetuates the myth.

This draft states that “The proposed Project is located 10 km west of downtown Kamloops, southwest of the junction of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Coquihalla Highway. The southern edge of the Kamloops municipal limits transects the proposed Project. The proposed Project is within the Thompson Nicola Regional District. Other communities in the vicinity include Logan Lake, located approximately 30 km southwest and Ashcroft, located approximately 60 km to the east.”

It is dated Aug. 12, a month and a half after the EA Office corrected the original mistake. It was posted on the EA website at the end of last week, as a report “from Suzanne L’Heureux (Transport Canada) to Nicole Vinette (EAO) regarding comments (in track changes) on the draft dAIR/EIS Guidelines for the proposed Ajax Project.”

That seems to indicate the draft went first from Knight Piesold, without correcting the location, to the feds and from there to the B.C. EA office.

In other words, the fiction has now travelled across the country and back again. This piece of misinformation simply will not die.