VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The province has appointed a three-member panel to conduct an independent investigation of a massive tailings pond breach at a gold and copper mine.

The government is also ordering other mine companies to conduct safety inspections of their own tailings ponds by Dec. 1, and to have the inspections reviewed by outside engineering firms.

Mines Minister Bill Bennett says the independent inquiry will be paid for by Imperial Metals, owner of the Mount Polley mine where two weeks ago the dam failure sent millions of litres of waste water into a network of salmon-bearing lakes and streams near the town of Likely, in the province’s central Interior.

“The motivation for doing this is to get at the truth. It’s to get out what happened — why it happened — so that we can fix it,” says Bennett.

He calls the spill a very serious incident and a disaster. Bennett’s comments go against his from last week, when he said the spill was not an environmental disaster.

Bennett says the panel geotechnical engineers and mining experts will explore the cause of the failure and make recommendations by the end of January 2015.

In addition, the chief inspector of mines has ordered third-party inspections by December for the province’s 98 permitted tailings ponds and promised to publicly released the findings from the inspections.

When the Mount Polley dam breached two weeks ago, Imperial Metals said there was no sign of trouble, however an environmental consultant’s report warned the pond was growing at an unsustainable rate.

Over the weekend, the environment ministry said initial tests on the slurry from the mine show the waste poses no risk to humans but may harm aquatic life.

First Nation bands support independent investigation

The local First Nation bands are very supportive of the investigation but Chief Ann Louie of the Williams Lake band says they want to be included in the process of reviewing the mining policies and legislation currently in place.

“We need them to ensure that insurance policies are increased, that their bonds are increased, that the companies are fully liable for the damages that are done. There is a lot of activity that needs to be looked at and strengthened with input of First Nations.”

Meanwhile the NDP says the independent investigation is a good first step. It remains concerned with the minister’s claim that the province is not at fault though. It also wants documents related to the mine to be released.