EDITORIAL & OPINION — Ekati opening reason to celebrate — How sweet it is!

They said it couldn’t be done. They said caribou herds and other wildlife would be at risk. They warned that fish habitat would be lost, that lakes would be drained, and that the aboriginal way of life would not be respected. They implied that if this and other projects were allowed to move forward, the ecologically sensitive Barren Lands of Canada’s Northwest Territories would become one huge open-pit mine.

The doom-and-gloomers pulled out all the stops in their attempt to block development the Ekati diamond project in the Northwest Territories and other mines hoping to follow in its footsteps. They are not environmentalists; they are the anti-human, anti-development forces who come out of the woodwork every time a mine is proposed, spouting propaganda that is swallowed wholesale by gullible media.

This time, they didn’t prevail; common sense and good science did. The Canadian mining industry hasn’t had much to cheer about lately, but the recent opening of the Ekati diamond mine gives us all reason to celebrate. It is the first diamond mine in Canada; it puts this country on the map as a diamond producer; it provides testimony to the excellence of Canadian geoscientists; and it will bring jobs and opportunities to northerners, particularly young aboriginals burdened by the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Ekati also signals a new era in Canadian mining. Long before one bucketload of ore was ever moved at the site, 300 km northeast of Yellowknife, operator Broken Hill Proprietary underwent the most exhaustive environmental, economic and social review in the history of Canadian mining.

In July 1995, the company submitted an environmental impact statement consisting of eight three-inch-thick volumes that weighed a total of 64 pounds, reflecting more than two years of environmental baseline work, three years of community consultation and two years of engineering design. It cost $14 million to prepare and, for the first time in Canadian history, incorporated the traditional knowledge of native Canadians.

The project faced many other challenges, including outstanding and sometimes overlapping land claims that had the potential of holding up mine development for years. Rather than wait for this politically driven process to end, BHP offered to negotiate impact and benefit agreements with aboriginal groups that would facilitate the flow of benefits to them despite the lack of settled claims. The company also had to deal with a myriad of territorial and federal government agencies; it had to address the legitimate and not-so-legitimate concerns of environmental groups and the public; and it had to find ways to accommodate the aspirations of various third parties which hoped to develop valued-added opportunities in the diamond industry.

It could not have been easy to meet these and other challenges, or to deal with people and politicians who sometimes forgot that the companies, and their investors, are important stakeholders in the mine development process.

Keeping track of the bottom line is more important than ever in these tough times, and politicians and the public need to understand that too many demands placed on mining projects can render them uneconomic. New mine projects should be allowed some breathing room, a cushion of comfort for the downturns that are an inevitable part of the industry cycle.

The public also needs to understand that miners can be environmentalists, that geologists care as much for wildlife as any member of the World Wildlife Federation, and that wildlife and mining can co-exist. Caribou herds still traverse the joint-venture lands, just as they have for centuries. In fact, they like to use the on-site roads for easy travel and are always granted the right-of-way. The fish appear to be as comfortable and safe navigating BHP’s newly created diversion channel as they are in nearby streams and lakes.

And they said it couldn’t be done.