Environmental assessment needed

Page 27

The Innu Nation and the Labrador Inuit Association won a court decision that will delay the construction of a temporary airstrip and road at Voisey's Bay, Nfld., until a full environmental assessment is done on the site. On Sept. 22, the Newfoundland Court of Appeal overturned an earlier decision by the Newfoundland Supreme Court that would have allowed the Voisey's Bay Nickel Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Inco, to build the airstrip and road without the environmental assessment.

The court actions stem from the nickel company's desire to build these temporary structures for exploratory purposes by this summer. Because the road and the airstrip were meant to be temporary and for exploratory purposes only, the Voisey's Bay Nickel felt that they didn't have to have a separate environmental assessment of that site of the construction. The company was already doing a comprehensive environmental assessment for the proposed mine and mill site and didn't think the temporary construction would cause a problem.

The Labrador Inuit Association and the Innu Nation, however, thought otherwise. Winston White, a spokesman for the Labrador Inuit Association, said the Inuit were worried that a memorandum of understanding that had been signed by the federal government, the Newfoundland government, the Innu Nation and the Inuit would be in jeopardy. This memorandum of understanding outlined a protocol for which environmental assessments would be undertaken. The Inuit and the Innu felt that the Voisey's Bay Nickel Company was trying to sidestep the memorandum with the complicity of the provincial minister of environment, who was responsible for determining whether or not an assessment was needed.

The minister determined that an assessment of the construction of the airstrip and road was not necessary. The Inuit, then the Innu, went to court to challenge that ruling. But the court ruled in July that the memorandum didn't apply to the construction. The following day, the minister issued a statement saying that he would allow the construction to proceed without an environmental assessment.

"It was a mood of great disappointment that the province had in fact been a signatory to an agreement called the memorandum of understanding back in January, and then to find that the minister tried to sidestep a document that he'd been a signatory to," said White. "It raised questions that his actions would put the [memorandum] into jeopardy. If he could move on one thing when he felt it was outside of the [memorandum], and under the Newfoundland Environmental Assessment Act, we felt he could try do this with the whole project piece by piece. Then the environmental assessment process would be a mockery.

"It made many of our members consider how serious the Newfoundland government would be about land claims," he continued. "We were approaching everything in good faith and then they do this."

On Sept. 22, the Newfoundland Court of Appeal ruled that the proposed construction was within the bounds of the memorandum of understanding and that it would have to wait until the comprehensive environmental assessment was complete.

White said the Inuit felt great relief about the ruling and it restored their faith in the memorandum and future dealings with the provincial government.

Rick Gill, executive vice-president of Voisey's Bay Nickel Company, was disappointed by the ruling but said that an appeal of that decision wasn't likely.

Gill asserted that Voisey's Bay Nickel is not trying to rush things but must respond to different economic and mining concerns. Temporary construction was usually allowed without first completing the comprehensive environmental assessment, he said, and that the environmental concerns of the Innu and Inuit are similar to the company's. But Inco competes with other international suppliers of nickel and if the company feels that the Voisey's Bay project is taking too long or becoming too expensive, it might have t look to other nickel mining projects for its supply.