Editorial Uranium and B.C. bureaucrats don’t mix

If ignorance is bliss, then the bureaucrats who rule Lotus Land are blissful indeed. British Columbian bureaucrats, who have let a seven-year uranium exploration and mining moratorium to expire in February, have replaced the moratorium with a set of rules for uranium exploration — all in the public interest, of course. This leaves only Nova Scotia with an archaic uranium exploration moratorium in effect.

The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources boasts that B.C. is today the only province in Canada to establish health and safety standards for uranium exploration. Failing to understand that uranium exploration is no more damaging to the environment than exploration for gold or base metals, the B.C. government officials have concocted an absurd set of regulations designed to hamper what little uranium exploration might be planned. Let’s face it, at $18(US) per lb. for uranium oxide and a world glut for the nuclear fuel, little exploration would ever be considered in B.C.

However, the very act of formulating a series of unnecessary regulations flys in the face for calls for general government constraint. For not only does the reputation of the province as a place for resource investment become tarnished, but the B.C. citizen foots the bill for administering yet another costly regulatory program. The regulations are rigorous. In a so-called designated area which has uranium grades over 0.05% (in Saskatchewan uranium ore grading 12% and more is safely mined and handled), a proposal for an exploration program first requires a public notice. It doesn’t stop here. Written approval from the Chief Inspector of Mines is also needed. But before approval is granted, the exploration proposal must be reviewed by at least two government departments and “all other concerned agencies.” Needless to say, such a process would take months to complete.

Any proposal which gets through this maze then must adhere to a set of exploration regulations. The most bizarre is for a baseline survey of background radiation. Didn’t anyone tell the genius who included this provision that any grass-roots uranium exploration program would include such a survey as part of any intelligent exploration effort?

Uranium has been safely mined in Canada for more than 40 years. Canada is a leader not only in the exploration for the mineral, but in the safe and efficient handling of uranium ores and their final product, nuclear fuels. Provinces such as Saskatchewan and Ontario which mine uranium don’t have onerous exploration guidelines constraining the mining industry. Neither should B.C.