Dear Honorable Bill Bennett, Simon Gibson, and Eddy Taje:
Within the mines act it states that an application for a mine permit can not be permitted if there is good cause. Residents and scientists have given adequate information why a mine at Lake Errock should not be developed and First Nations living here are also opposed. It is time we were allowed to get on with our lives instead of wasting our time trying to stop another mine starting in our neighborhood.
As our representative it is time you started to support us.
The Liberals talk of family values and we are pleading with you to honour our families and stop the encroaching mine permit application for Lake Errock near Mission, B.C.
Our families will be exposed to dust and noise.
Dust is dust. It contains particles. Whether or not the particles are toxic is not the whole issue. Lake Errock is a parabolic bowl different to all the neighboring pits in that our community resides around the lake surrounded by the mountains that some want to log and mine. More often than not the wind blows south to north and the dust is blown into out community and on to the lake. When the Lehigh pit is in production the lake is covered in algea, a green slime and dust, and when not working the water is clear and void of algae. The Lehigh pit is small in comparison to neighboring Ekset application The dust produced if the new pit goes ahead will be umpteen times worse. Due to the bowl like geography, our area traps in the dust pollution.
Then there is the issue of noise. The water and the surrounding mountains carry the noise of cars and trains to our homes but this noise is intermittent. The crashing and grinding and loading of rocks from morning to evening all week every week is damaging to the nervous system. Read scientific evidence on noise pollution, or go and sit next to a mine that is in production and you will experience what we had to live through in 2010 and prior. The other pits do not have the same parabolic bowl with lake situation. If I were to stand at the top of the Lehigh pit and yell, you can hear the noise echoed in our community.
Everyone here has said "No", to putting a mine in sight of our homes. Our children ride bikes where the exhaust from the trucks polluting the air and the wind from the passing trucks are a threat to blowing them off the bike and it is a dangerous situation. I cannot understand why anyone would consider forcing something so despicable to live with on a community where children come to play in the lake and have to view a sight of scraped earth void of vegetation, swim through dust and algae and hear thunderous rock crashing drowning out the silence, or sounds of children laughing.
The mine is a scant distance from our water supply and should their be an accident our drinking water could be polluted. We live here because our water is clean and we do not need to chlorinate. The tourism industry in our neighborhood will be totally wiped out and our investments will plummet from the dust and noise that will pollute our community.
Use your power to say no to destroying our families health, put your influence to work and live up to your statements of putting families first.
Sylvia Langmann
Lake Errock