Seabridge Gold’s Brent Murphy, sent a letter to Mary Kauffman, Editor of SitNews to clarify statements made in the recent news release published by SitNews titled ‘SEITC Responds to UN Special Rapporteur’s Report’ where referring to impacts of upstream dams, one of the recommendations from the report said ‘Canada should take proactive measures to prevent environmental harm and respect concerns of risk of harm including where host countries have put in place no-go-zones for resource extraction’. Mr. Frederick Olsen Jr was quoted responding to this recommendation, “Exactly! On their side of the border, they want the KSM mine which would be one of the world’s largest mines but a few miles away, on our side, we have Misty Fjords National Monument and plenty of sacred sites.”
The above statement by Mr. Olsen does not stand true for Seabridge Gold’s KSM Project. The KSM Project’s Tailings Management Facility is located in the upper reaches of the Bell Irving River Basin and drains into Canadian waters, not the Unuk River, or any other US waterway. To imply otherwise is simply incorrect.
Further, the proposed KSM Project successfully completed a rigorous independent joint harmonized BC-CANADA Environmental Assessment over a seven-year period (2007-2104), a regulatory review that also involved both US Federal and State representatives working alongside Provincial and Federal regulators. As we experienced, the BC EA process includes a five-pillar assessment and ensures that any potential environmental, economic, social, heritage and health effects that may occur during the lifetime of a major project, are thoroughly assessed.
Read the letter here.