Imperial Metals, owners of the Mount Polley Mine are asking for a change to the company’s temporary waste water discharge permit into Quesnel Lake.
The company wants to run a line from the holding pond out to the lake and then be allowed to do what’s called a deep water discharge.
The plan is for the treated waste water to be pumped into the lake at a depth of about 40 to 50 metres.
That plan, recently the subject of several town-hall style meetings, isn’t sitting well with the residents of Likely.
Doug Watt a liaison with the Likely Chamber of Commerce says they would rather see it pumped into the Quesnel River.
“That’s kind of what we are proposing that the mine should be looking at is, run a line out towards the Quesnel River and then do a discharge, it would again be underwater dispersal in the river down stream of the lake.”
Watt says it appears the only thing standing in the way of this idea is money, noting the process would be more costly for the mine, but that the waste water would be diluted far more quickly running through the river system than if dumped into the lake.