Queries Lake Ontario dredging sill on the books

Your paper has printed several articles about Platinova Resources’ activity in Greenland. Last March you also noted the association of Platinova with Deni son Mines regarding a project to dredge fine aggregate from Lake Ontario for sale to the concrete industry. Since then, there has been nothing more written about this project. I would appreciate it if you could let me know if the government will allow Platinova and Denison to proceed. R. B., Delray Beach, Fl.

Ontario’s Environment Ministry may well allow Platinova Resources (TSE) and Denison Mines (TSE) to go ahead with their plan but not before a number of questions regarding the environmental impact have been answered.

Denison and Platinova have applied for a 1-year licence to conduct trial dredging on the lake bed about three miles off the Niagara- on-the-Lake shoreline (T.N.M., March 13/89). The companies are planning to use Scandinavian technology.

Niagara-on-the-Lake, a popular tourist centre, is situated in an agricultural area where the environmental lobby is very strong. Representatives of local shoreline property owners and the Municipality of Niagara have asked that the project be designated under the Environment Assessment Act.

Those requests were forwarded to Ontario Environment Minister James Bradley who is the member for nearby St. Catharines.

Under the law, public projects like the Platinova dredging plan are subject to the Environmental Assessment Act unless they are specifically exempted by the Ontario government.

According to Bill Taylor, who works as a planner in the Ontario Environment Assessment branch, Platinova and Denison could still avoid the costly and time-consuming procedures that such a designation would involve.

But in order to do so, Taylor said they have been asked to undertake further studies of the possible impact of dredging on the local environment.

Specifically, the joint venture must provide information on the potential that dredging could have for removing contaminated sediments from a sand bar on the lake bed. The sediments are thought to contain PCBs.

As the project would be located on the border of the Canada-U.S. licencing area, the partners have also been asked to consult with environmental authorities in the state of New York.

But Platinova Vice-President David Owens said Environment Ministry officials will have to be a lot more specific on what is required to secure a dredging licence before any more money is spent on the project.

“There is currently no criterion for assessing licencing applications and we are not going to do anything more until the process we have to go through is better defined,” he said. “For the moment the project will remain on the back burner.”