A vocal minority is threatening the economic potential of Northern Vancouver Island. At a time when many jobs are being lost the Raven project is a tremendous opportunity.
I strongly encourage miners, contractors, suppliers, students, and business owners to visibly support Compliance Energy’s Raven Coal Project located west of Buckley Bay, BC. Regulators strongly seek local opinion. Unfortunately much of the input, by coal watch and other extreme environmental groups, is negative.
The anti mine protesters, seem to forget the cars they are driving to meetings were made with the use of metallurgical coal for the steel frame. The bridges and ferries they are transporting their cars on were made with steel produced by coal. The healthcare, social benefits and government services they enjoy are financed by taxing the earnings of resource based industry.
This determined group now selfishly attempts to preserve what they perceive to be a pristine environment from the evils of coal mining. The fact that the area of the mine has been clear cut logged several times and coal has previously been mined in the area without today’s environmental controls seems to have been conveniently forgotten. The watershed in question has numerous road cuts, gravel pits and rock quarries made by logging companies which did not even have to be permitted. Over the years nature has and will reclaim these industrial sites.
The government ministries responsible for permitting are treating the project location as a highly sensitive area and are committed to an exhaustive review process. They have a comprehensive set of regulations which will only allow mine construction after exceedingly thorough investigations have proved no damage to the environment will result before during or after extraction of coal from underground. The project is highly in need of input from the “FOR” side in order to bring some balance into the equation. The world is still hungry for energy; if this coal is not mined here it will be mined somewhere else with far less regard for the environment than on Vancouver Island.
Jim McMillan
Campbell River
