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The Mount Polley mine disaster is an environmental disaster in the Cariboo region of central British Columbia, Canada, that began August 4, 2014 with a breach of the Imperial Metals-owned Mount Polley copper and gold mine tailings pond, releasing its water and slurry with years worth of mining waste into Polley Lake. The spill flooded Polley Lake, its outflow Hazeltine Creek, and continued into nearby Quesnel Lake and Cariboo Creek. By August 8, the four square kilometres sized tailings pond was empty. Water tests showed elevated levels of selenium, arsenic and other metals similar to historical tests before the disaster. The cause of the dam break has been investigated with a final report published January 31, 2015. Imperial Metals had a history of operating the pond beyond capacity since at least 2011. ==Dam breach== The Mount Polley open pit copper and gold mine disaster in the Cariboo region of British Columbia began in the early morning of August 4, 2014 with a partial breach of the tailings pond dam, releasing 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of slurry into Polley Lake. The contaminated slurry carried felled trees, mud and debris and "scoured away the banks" of Hazeltine Creek which flows out of Polley Lake and continued into the nearby Quesnel Lake. The spill caused Polley Lake to rise by . Hazeltine Creek was transformed from a stream to a "wasteland" * and Cariboo Creek was also affected.〔 As of August 8, 2014, a "slurry of toxic water and mud" continued to pour into the once pristine Quesnel Lake, the cleanest deep water lake in the world.〔 By the end of the day the four square kilometres sized tailings pond was "virtually empty".〔〔 Mine safety experts and media articles have called the spill one of the biggest environmental disasters in modern Canadian history. British Columbia’s government initially insisted the dam failure was not an environmental disaster, a position British Columbia’s Environment Minister, Mary Polak, reversed in November 2014. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mount Polley mine disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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