What the Joint Review Panel said . . .
“Based on our assessment, we conclude that the project is likely to result in significant adverse environmental effects on surface water quality, westslope cutthroat trout and their habitat, whitebark pine, rough fescue grasslands, and vegetation species and community biodiversity.” (p. viii Executive Summary.)
“The project will release a number of contaminants, particularly selenium, into receiving surface waters. Benga made several optimistic and non-conservative assumptions in assessing project effects on surface water quality, and these assumptions undermined our confidence in the results Benga presented. Benga assumed that it could capture 95 or 98 per cent of the selenium-rich contact water coming from the waste rock dumps, which modelling showed was necessary to achieve target selenium concentrations in the effluent and receiving streams. The project as proposed is unlikely to achieve this capture efficiency.” (p. ix Executive Summary.)
Full Report of the Joint Review Panel, Grassy Mountain Coal Project
The mine promoter’s original environmental impact assessment