Council to wait on Ajax comment issue

NEWS/ AJAX — After clashing over comments made about a top staffer in the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, Kamloops City councillors decided to leave the issue of a second public comment period on Ajax mine until a public information session sometime in October.

A letter from Scott Bailey, the project leader for the EAO on the Ajax file, informed council he would work to firm up a date for the information session on the environmental assessment process, but he declined to sanction another official public comment period, at least for now.

Council had asked for the new comment period prior to the submission of KGHM’s application for an environmental permit because the company has changed its plan for a dry tailings stack to a wet tailings pond similar to the one that burst at the Mount Polley Mine in the Cariboo.

During a discussion of the letter, and a motion by Coun. Lange to send another one re-stating the request, Coun. Donovan Cavers made comments about the level of competence in the EA office that drew some heated rebuttals from Mayor Peter Milobar and Coun. Arjun Singh.

Milobar refused to support Lange’s motion because of Cavers’ comments.

The mayor called the comments “character assassination” and “personal attacks.”

“It makes it tough to support things when we start trying to personalize things here,” the mayor said. “I’m not going to be attached to something like that.”

Singh admitted Cavers’ comments made him angry. “What he said offended me to a great extent. I don’t think you should be doing that around the council table.”

Cavers defended his comments, saying they weren’t “character assassination, that was my interpretation of the quality of his response. I expect a higher standard from a provincial body.”

However, Milobar ended the discussion. Most councillors felt there was no point in sending a letter with the same question as before, and it would be better asked at the EAO-hosted information session on the application process. A date for that hasn’t been set.