To the Editor,
The Polley Lake Mine tailings breach is occurring daily in B.C.! That’s right, it’s true! Thanks to Mother Nature, not only do we have thousands of slides occurring in B.C. each year, we also have water run off occurring naturally in thousands of creeks and streams – water run off that people have erroneously been calling “toxic” water.
As an example, “Fools Gold”, or “Pyrite”, is just one of Mother Nature’s little pranks on humanity. It turns out that this useless rock, which fooled many a prospector in its day, has another last laugh for humankind. The natural forces of Mother Nature continually expose and release the iron and sulphur mixture in Pyrite which rain then washes away as acidic (low pH) water into streams, creeks and lakes all over B.C., and without detrimentally affecting fish or humans.
That’s right. Acidic, so-call “toxic”, water has been leaching into our fish-bearing waterways for centuries due to the weathering and erosion of planet Earth. It’s been happening since before Europeans and Asians arrived in B.C. and it’s likely been happening since before the First Nations appeared.
So I have to ask: why has there been so much hullabaloo over the low pH acidic water from Mount Polley affecting fish when low pH acidic run off water is occurring naturally every day all over B.C.?
Fred Reemeyer
Coquitlam B.C.