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Niocan
talks back
I was somewhat surprised to see your article of Jan. 17 on the Niocan
Project [“Your mine, not mine”], as your interview with us
and Mr. Bonspille dated back to last November, 2001. Even more surprising
are the comments made by Mr. G. Edwards, who is a witness for the party
opposed to the project at the Tribunal Administratif du Québec.
He has not been cross-interrogated as yet and Niocan has still not presented
its own experts at the Tribunal.
This said, I am obliged to correct a number of statements of fact made
by Mr. Edwards, in particular the statement that “Radon gas is
encountered in uranium mining and the ore body for niobium [referring
to Niocan] is in a uranium body.” The following figures compare
the content of uranium oxide in the NIOCAN ore with an existing low-grade
and a high-grade uranium mine.
NIOCAN: 0,001%
or 10 ppm
Cluff Lake: 1,20% or 12,000 ppm
McArthur River: 17,3% or 173,000 ppm
The minute
quantity of uranium present in the NIOCAN S-60 deposit is locked in
the pyrochlore mineral, which also bears niobium mineral. Contrary to
Mr. Edwards’ statement, breaking the rock into small fragments
does not liberate uranium, which remains locked in the pyrochlore mineral
itself. In fact, NIOCAN tailings, the rejects from ore processing, will
contain 4 ppm of uranium, which is close to the normal background level
outside of the carbonatite area (2–4 ppm).
Another passage refers to the support of those against the project.
Nothing can be further from the truth! A recent survey of 500 people
in the Village and Parish, which makes up the Municipality of Oka, showed
that 40 per cent of the population is against the project, but that
nearly half of this proportion would accept the decision of the Ministry
of Environment once its experts have studied and reviewed the Environmental
Impact Study.
NIOCAN clearly expressed to the Council of Kanesatake in February 2000
that it was willing to train up to 20 individuals within that community
for jobs that would be made available.
Various letters,
faxes, telephone calls made by NIOCAN to the Kanesatake leaders have
remained unanswered to date.
It is evident
that some opponents are spending a lot of time and money to prevent
a highly ecological and economically beneficial project for the community
to proceed.
—Richard
Faucher,
Niocan president and CEO
Hemp
demonized
Your angel in “Angels
& Insects” [Jan 24] on hemp company Kenex Ltd. in Chatham,
Ontario brings up an old problem. The U.S. government bans all hemp
in the name of stopping any use of marijuana. Of course, this doesn’t
make sense since the hemp used for fibre and paper pulp is entirely
different from the smoking variety. The U.S. (and Canada, I presume)
is really more interested in stopping the use of hemp fibre than in
preventing people from getting high.
This policy stems from a government study done in the ’20s or ’30s,
which showed the practicality and economic soundness of growing hemp
as a renewable resource for paper production—especially newsprint—rather
than clear-cutting forests.
Naturally, large timber interests (which include a few news empires)
viewed such reasoning as a threat. In response, hemp and marijuana were
classified as the same thing, and thus hemp was demonized in the name
of saving us from the evils of marijuana. No argument about the harmlessness
or health benefits of marijuana will get it decriminalized in North
America: there are still a lot of trees to cut.
—William
Jensen
Correction
In last week’s news story [“With friends like these...”]
we identified Rivka Augenfeld as a representative of the Committee to
Aid Refugees. Rather, she is president of the Table de concertation
des organismes au service des personnes refugiées et immigrantes,
a Quebec-wide coalition of 130 members, of which the Committee to Aid
Refugees is one. The Mirror regrets the error.
Also in last week’s issue, Jason Felker was not credited for the
photos that appeared with the story about the anniversary party of Buonanotte
[“Too hot to handle”].
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