A recently released study gave confirmation of the negative environmental effects of the Mount Polley mine environmental disaster from almost a decade ago.
Back in August of 2014, the mine’s tailings dam failed, which resulted in about 17 million cubic meters of water getting contaminated and 8 million cubic meters of tailings/materials that got dumped into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake had a big impact.
The study has revealed that since then, small invertebrate fish that were affected by the materials have a higher concentration of copper and other metals than fish in unaffected waters.
Copper has proven to be a big problem for aquatic organisms, as it affects their growth and hampers their ability to survive.
The tailings and materials are likely to stay in the lakes forever unless they got flushed out or taken elsewhere but that could potentially cause even more contamination.
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