HALIFAX—Nova Scotia legislators quashed the asks of a mining lobby group looking for a ban on uranium exploration and mining to be lifted after hearing that the energy and mines department sees little economic potential in the resource — but the decision wasn’t unanimous.

MLAs from the Liberal government and opposition NDP reaffirmed their commitment to Nova Scotia’s 10-year-old ban on searching for and extracting the naturally radioactive metal, while the two Progressive Conservative members of a provincial standing committee did not.

The Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS) had the audience of the standing committee on natural resources and economic development — which convenes monthly with five Liberal MLAs, and two from each of the opposition parties — on Tuesday afternoon.

MANS executive director Sean Kirby said Nova Scotia should lift the legislated ban and show the international mining industry that the province is “open for business.”

“We believe that modern uranium mining is safe and environmentally responsible,” he told the committee.

Kirby suggested that the threat of well-water contamination and radon-gas poisoning in homes could be addressed by extracting uranium from the ground.

“Our lack of knowledge is hurting us. We need to be doing exploration of uranium, documenting where it is, coming to understand better our geology for uranium in order to help protect Nova Scotians from theses public health risks,” he said.

The Nova Scotia government of 1982 struck up a commission to inquire into uranium deposits because of public concerns over the potential health and safety hazards of exploration, mining and milling of the metal. A 1985 report showed more than 40 occurrences of uranium scattered around mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and two prospective mining sites — one in Hants County and one in Kings County.

A moratorium was put into effect at that time and the ban followed in 2009 under an act of the NDP-governed legislature.

MANS geologist Rick Horne told the committee that uranium exploration was “only beginning” before it was banned, and MANS environmental specialist Peter Oram said there isn’t enough data to understand the potential public health risks.

But Simon d’Entremont, deputy minister of Nova Scotia’s department of energy and mines, said he wasn’t worried about public health risks.

“We have enough information historically on uranium in the province to make very good radon maps and maps of uranium that can be a risk to well water and radon gas that comes from uranium to be able to do a good job in doing a public health role,” he told reporters after the meeting.

He added that it’s important for people to test their wells and their homes, which they can do with the help of rented equipment from public libraries or through programs offered by the Canadian Lung Association.

d’Entremont said his department isn’t interested in uranium mining because international demand for the metal is mostly met, prices are low and nuclear energy (which uranium is used for) isn’t part of Nova Scotia’s energy plan. He added that the department hasn’t received any recent requests from industry for exploration, or from communities wanting to invite exploration.

The deputy minister agreed when Kirby touted the economic benefits of resource extraction, saying, by way of example, that $2 billion in royalties from offshore oil and gas have helped Nova Scotia pay for important infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and roads. But, he said, there was more context to consider.

“The question of which minerals do we pick and why do we pick them is one increasingly we’re asking in the department,” d’Entremont told the committee.

He said mining policy is increasingly “favouring the types of minerals that we need to achieve our ambitions in other areas,” like achieving renewable energy goals.

“We need lithium for batteries for our electric vehicles, we need copper for turbines.”

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, the NDP introduced a motion that “the committee reaffirms its support of the ban on uranium mining,” because of the “significant public concern” about its risks, which were identified in the 1980s.

All members of the committee, except PC MLAs Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin and Pat Dunn, voted in favour of the motion.

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Dunn told reporters afterward that the PC party “would like to see the ban lifted so there’s some exploration,” but walked back the position when asked to clarify.

He said the PCs simply wanted more information about uranium deposits.

“We did vote against (the motion), yes; right at that particular moment, when we had a few seconds to decide if we should vote for it or against it, we were thinking of the possibility — is that going to close the doors to any more information coming forward?”

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