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Today is the second anniversary of the worst environmental mining disaster in Canadian history.

On that morning two years ago, the 40-metre-high tailing dam as Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley mine failed. Twenty-five million cubic metres of toxic waste water and construction materials spewed into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and eventually Quesnel Lake, 9.4 km away.

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Initially, the release occurred as a sequence of powerful purges depositing debris in the waterways and along the banks into the surrounding forest. Before the breach, Hazeltine Creek was about a metre wide. After the failure it was about 45 metres wide.

Within the year much of the affected forest would be dead.

Two days after the spill, the ministries of Environment and Energy and Mines promised the response to the spill would be thorough, that health and safety would be protected and that the “cost of the cleanup of the breach is the responsibility of Imperial Metals, and is not a cost borne by B.C. taxpayers.” Two days after that, Environment Minister Polak said: “We have a polluter-pay model in British Columbia and we expect the company will be the one paying for the cleanup and recovery.”