DYLAN ARMSTRONG WILL GET HIS OLYMPIC BRONZE MEDAL • PAGE A19
DE K A M L O O P S
Drink it up! Vino, brew now at farmers’ market Page A3
THURSDAY
Thursday, August 21, 2014 X Volume 27 No. 98
Kamloops, B.C., Canadaa X 30 cents ceennttss at at Ne N Newsstands ew wssst staan nddss
THIS WEEK
Thompson Thompso on River on Riv iveerr P Publications uubblilica catition ons L Li Limited imi mite t d Partne Partnership errsship
New Afton, Ajax at top of ratings scale
Thompson Rivers University professor Lachlan Fraser (left) finds his research can take him around the world, including a trip into the grasslands of Tibet with Chinese researcher Ruijun Long.
By Cam Fortems STAFF REPORTER
cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
‘AN ALL-STAR TOO GOOD TO LOSE’ By Dale Bass
STAFF REPORTER
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
Lauchlan Fraser is one of those scientists who can take a small patch of land, study it and learn something about climate change. And, if Thompson Rivers University has its way, he’ll be doing it from Kamloops well into the future. Fraser’s work, all designed around creating a healthier environment, is so key to TRU — and, by extension, to local businesses and the region — that creating a school of reclamation science is a priority for the institu-
With Lauch Fraser,TRU poised to become world leader in grasslands restoration
READ ALL ABOUT HIS RESEARCH • PAGE A5 tion, said TRU vicepresident advancement Christopher Seguin. It’s a viewpoint echoed by the dean of science. Tom Dickinson said there’s a plan in place to either start a separate school or centre, or see a Canada Research Council chair position created, much like the one Fraser just completed,
focusing on ecosystems. Dickinson said Fraser “is too good to lose.” The university is working with the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council to create an industrial-research chair for Fraser, seeing such potential that the university could be a world leader in
grassland restoration, according to Seguin. “Lauch Fraser is an all-star researcher for us and the team he has assembled to study reclamation is incredibly impressive,” Seguin said. Dickinson said that process is about a year out, so he, Seguin and other administrators at the university are pulling together industry
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partners, including the city, which is one of the major players due to its land-management role. The possibilities Fraser’s work presents to TRU aren’t limited to the region, the province — or even the country. Seguin noted Fraser and his associates are already working on reclamation, in particular at mines, and the relationships they have developed with companies behind the processes that create disturbances to the environment could see the work being done “spread internationally.”
The Ministry of Energy and Mines has released information showing one tailings dam bordering Kamloops and another proposed facility are rated near the top of the scale for consequences to life and property. A permitted tailings storage facility at New Afton mine 10 kilometres west of Kamloops and the proposed tailings impoundment at KGHM’s Ajax mine south of Aberdeen are rated as “very high” on the ministry’s consequence-classification system. The release of information comes in the wake of the tailings-pond breach at Mount Polley mine in the Cariboo, which sent millions of litres of contaminated water cascading into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake. B.C.’s chief inspector of mines ordered all permitted metal and coal mines in the province to undergo an immediate dam-safety inspection, to be reviewed by an independent engineering firm. Mines must also complete a new dam-inundation study to detail the impacts of failure. The newest tailings-storage facility is overseen by New Gold at its New Afton underground mine. It is rated near the top of the scale for impact on life and property were it to fail. The corporation has declined to discuss its tailings facility publicly, but will be bound by the order and results made public by the province. KGHM Ajax has responsibility for two tailings facilities — its proposed impoundment at Goose Lake as well as Afton’s historic tailings pond, which is no longer in use. Project manager Warner Uhl confirmed with KTW the corporation’s proposed tailings-storage facility is rated as “very high” for consequences of failure. But, Uhl added, KGHM is hoping to reduce that risk classification. “We’re looking at ways of taking that classification down,” Uhl said. “We’re looking to reduce that classification from high to low.”
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