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As Michael Patenaude set about preparing his lakeside La Peche cottage for summer, he had no idea that rights to the soil below his property had been yanked out from under his feet.
The Ottawa management consultant had heard of the debate raging over uranium exploration in the area, but a routine web search on the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests database confirmed his fears.
Patenaude was shocked to learn that the land his cottage was built upon—land which had been in his name since 1999—had a recent claim staked upon it by one Fayz Yacoub, with mineral exploration rights optioned to Aldershot Resources Ltd., a British Columbia-based mining exploration company with an interest in uranium.
NO SHARE IN PROFITS
Patenaude was not even aware that his land ownership was limited to surface rights and that mineral rights beneath the surface could be claimed by anyone successfully applying for a prospector’s licence. The landowner is not invited to share in any profits from resources discovered below the soil.
Patenaude learned that the prospecting had been conducted in the fall, when most cottages are closed for the season. Mandatory notice had been delivered to vacant doorsteps.
Aldershot had laid claim to more than 15,000 hectares of mostly Crown land throughout Quebec, but had also acquired some privately owned property.
In December, Aldershot president Jeremy Caddy visited West Quebec to quell public fears at an open meeting in La Peche.
He told residents that Aldershot would not set foot on private land without written consent, and that no open-pit uranium mines would be developed against the will of the people.
Quebec environmentalist Ian Huggett was at the meeting and admitted, to his dismay, that there was support building for a potential mining operation from the “severely depressed economy” of the Pontiac region.
“The forestry industry bottomed out because of over-cutting and bad management,” said Huggett. “So mills are closing. People are out of jobs. So that’s where there is support.”
The view is shortsighted in the opinion of many, including Patenaude, who has since set up a blog at no-uranium.blogspot.com, informing citizens of the recourse they can take to oppose mining operations and to protect their property from exploration.
“If you want to have employment for 10, maybe 15 years if you’re lucky, a few hundred jobs at the most, and then end up with a legacy of a toxic site that’s potentially toxic for centuries or longer, you’re making a deal with the devil,” said Patenaude.
“Certainly the mining companies are very good at promising all kinds of economic benefits but the downside of course is that tourism can suffer, property values plummet, people stop investing in their cottages so the local employment drops off. There are all kinds of counterarguments.”
While Patenaude’s blog is attracting attention, Huggett is leading a campaign to have the Quebec Mining Act amended to reduce some of the exclusive rights of the mining companies.
“Article 235 (of the Act) states that ‘The holder of mining rights may acquire by agreement or expropriation any property permitting access for exploration work or mining operations.’” said Huggett.
If a uranium mine was to open, the company would be subject to a provincial environmental assessment and also be under the scrutiny of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
But during the exploration process, companies are under no obligation to undergo any environmental assessment.
MNA PETITIONED
Huggett has been gathering support to petition local MNA Charlotte L’Ecuyer to change the act to remove expropriation rights from the mining companies.
L’Ecuyer said there is no cause for concern. To her knowledge, there are no imminent plans to develop uranium mines in her riding.
“First of all, they didn’t find anything interesting, and the rules and regulations that are enforced for uranium mines are so strict that it would take 10 years before it could open. That was the end of it. We haven’t heard of it since,” said Ecuyer.
But according to Joan Kuyek, national co-ordinator of Mining Watch Canada, companies are still “very much in the exploration stage.”
“There is now a number of major explorations going on for uranium across the Outaouais and going up past Mont Laurier and Maniwaki,” said Kuyek.
Uranium was first discovered in the 1950s in Quebec, but was never economical to mine until now, according to Kuyek. With uranium values skyrocketing and the Quebec government offering tax incentives to mining companies, the uranium business is suddenly quite lucrative.
“It’s quite shocking, really. What you get is all these communities where the company is mining, they pay themselves whopping big salaries, and the local community is bearing the brunt of it. They’re worried sick about what’s happening,” said Kuyek. “Neighbours are turned against neighbours over the issue, and there’s the offside possibility that the exploration will disturb underground uranium deposits around aquifers and mobilize uranium.
“There’s no guarantee that what they’re doing—poking around with their drills into the ground and eventually taking out rock samples where they can—that this isn’t going to stir up uranium. Once uranium is exposed to air and water, it degrades and becomes various forms of radioisotopes. A lot of these communities already have high background levels of radiation, so when (uranium) is being disturbed and adding to the levels it can make it worse quite quickly,” said Kuyek.
“Who wants to be on a lake near a mine that could be bombarded with particles of radioactive material and dust?” asks Patenaude.
“And it’s not just in the immediate vicinity, because these watersheds are huge, the Ottawa River and the Gatineau River systems are both potentially going to be impacted by mining up in the west Quebec area.”
That’s the concern that is echoed by environmentalist Huggett. During the exploration process, drilling operations disturb uranium deposits while shifting the flow of groundwater.
“The ‘drawdown effect’ will change the flow of groundwater and cause radon gas to come up in people’s wells,” said Huggett.
With a majority of active claims along the Coulonge River and Cuyon River, which flow directly into the Ottawa and Outaouais river systems, the health and environmental concern grows more real.
“When they excavate, up come the tailings, and those tailings will have particles of uranium in them, and every time it rains those tailings will wash into the water body,” said Huggett.
The anti-mining petition now has 2,000 signatures and 300 people turned out to a demonstration in Mont Laurier. The town council in La Peche has imposed a moratorium on uranium mining, with the legislation copied to Quebec Premier Jean Charest.
Mining Watch Canada is advising residents to take it in their own hands to make sure their land is protected.
“We’re advising people in Quebec now to write the company and say in no uncertain terms by registered letter that they don’t want them on their land and that there is no mutual consent,” said Kuyek.
“It doesn’t hurt to do it in Ontario either, but it’s not going to help you an awful lot.”
Kuyek said Ontario mining laws are set up to extend even more protection to the mining companies.
“In Ontario, technically the mining act doesn’t require (the companies) to even tell the owner they’re there,” said Kuyek.
NO CONSENT REQUIRED
“The first thing that people are upset about is that claims can be staked even without their consent, and that’s true both in Ontario and Quebec—no consent is required for the staking of a claim. You just have to be a prospector, and to be a prospector you only have to pay $25 and be 18 years old,” said Kuyek.
“People are very concerned that the mineral rights are being staked out from under them and most people weren’t even aware that they didn’t own mineral rights.”
In North Frontenac Twp., another region rich with mineral deposits in Canadian Shield bedrock, citizens’ coalitions are being organized to fight uranium exploration.
Marilyn Crawford, of the Bedford Mining Alert, spoke at an April meeting in the tiny village of Snow Road Station, about 100 km north of Kingston, where nearly 100 residents showed up to voice their concerns.
“Prospectors have gone in to stake claims without notifying the landowners. Several people spoke about having trees cut down and blazed in areas that are not open to staking,” said Crawford.
According to Ontario law, notice must be given to landowners only once, and can be delivered as little as 24 hours before ground exploration begins.
“The rights of prospectors include entering without consultation with or consent from landowners,” said Crawford. “Landowners may receive the notice after exploration begins and some have said that they do not understand what the notice means. It is a difficult situation when landowners are forced to negotiate with someone who has damaged their land.”
Frontenac Ventures Corp., based in Sutton, has claims on 8,000 hectares of land in the area, and according to the company website plans to launch “an aggressive exploration and development program.”
“They can clearcut trees, they can surface strip to expose the bedrock, then they can either collect samples from that, or they can drill or blast,” said Crawford.
At the meeting, residents were upset at the prospect of having their land trespassed and damaged during the uranium exploration process, and at the potential health and environmental hazards.
“As well as a licence to trespass, claimholders are not required to restore the land once they’ve finished exploration,” said Crawford.
“There is no monitoring by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, including drilling for uranium,” said Crawford. “Residents will have no idea of the impacts on the groundwater.”
Meanwhile, in Ottawa, Patenaude updates his blog with a video clip of Aldershot president Jeremy Caddy—a business profile from the website Company Execs Online.
“Aldershot is totally focused on uranium exploration,” proclaims Caddy in the clip, which also appears on his company’s website. Caddy didn’t respond to interview requests from the Sun, but in the video he identifies the Fort Coulonge property as one of the “key projects we’ve got” in the company portfolio.
The video highlights several Aldershot-staked properties slated for imminent drilling in Africa and Australia.
“There’s nothing quite like developing a mine and going into production,” says Caddy.