LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — B.C. ignores promising anomaly

Sustainable mining requires continuing explorations especially along certain stratigraphic zones found to be ore-bearing in one locality, like the Faro belt in Yukon. I have worked extensively with soil sampling and geophysics for decades. Frequently, the stop-and-go nature of exploration has forced me to abandon promising programs in British Columbia because of financial or governmental obstacles. I am well aware of some outstanding results never yet followed up.

In early June, I received a copy of a map entitled “Toward a Protected Areas Strategy for B.C.,” issued by British Columbia’s parks department — 2.5 years after the provincial Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources published Stream Sediment Geochemistry of the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy Study Area.

The map confuses the issue by having the same legend for national parks, provincial parks and recreational areas, and wilderness areas. The “urgency” is marked in four categories: as soon as possible, by 1993, by 1995, by 2000. It is obvious that no one wants to take the risk of staking mineral claims near any of these areas. The parks department has disregarded the existence of an anomaly with mineral potential along the west boundary, as indicated in the Purcell study, and included it in the conservation category. The mines department should remain in control of exploration and mining. Attempts to subjugate it to the environment, the forestry and the parks departments will leave control to people who don’t know anything about exploration and mining.

Both the federal and the British Columbia Geological Surveys have excellent personnel. B.C.’s maps and studies produce enough facts to select park and wilderness areas away from mineral belts, where private individual enterprise should be encouraged to discover blind orebodies for many years to come. P.H. Sevensma, P.Eng.

Osoyoos, B.C.