(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)
April 25, 2017 - 4:26 PM
KAMLOOPS - There’s finally a date for when the Kamloops city council will make a decision on the proposed Ajax Mine.
City council has set a meeting for July 17 to decide whether or not to support the application and discuss a letter to the federal and provincial environmental assessment agencies explaning the choice. While the city’s stance doesn’t have legal sway on the application, the federal and provincial governments will take the decision into account.
Two other meetings have been set as well. A public town hall is scheduled for June 19 with a presentation from the city’s independent consultant SLR Consulting. An Interior Health Authority medical officer and an air quality expert will be invited to present, while the Thompson Nicola Regional District board and local First Nations will also be invited to attend.
On June 22, city council will have a more in-depth meeting with the consultants to ask more questions.
"I’m not an expert so I would welcome those questions and comments from the public," Councillor Tina Lange said.
The meeting schedule follows the introduction of a new timeline with an extension to the application review period by the environmental assessment agencies. Because of the addtion of 110 days to the application review the city no longer has as tight a deadline as expected. Part of the new timeline includes an additional public input period sometime in the summer.
At today's, April 25, council meeting also included the submission of over 1,000 signatures as part of an anti-Ajax Mine petition from Thompson Rivers University ECO club.
For more on the proposed copper and gold mine, click here.
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