...laymen who may have no background in this area and who may be unduly influenced by scare tactics from environmental extremists.
Wow. Speaking of laymen who have no background in this area....I find your characterization of the potential for political opposition to an open pit chromite mine as "scare tactics from environmental extremists" to be both inflammatory and naive.
I spoke to a CBC correspondent at a Christmas party I attended, and she was quite surprised that I knew anything about the Ring of Fire, and the potential chromite mining. She had covered the evacuations of Attawapiskat (on the Attawapiskat River drainage) and Kashechewan (on the Albany). You might recall that the Canadian Forces flew in their DART team to supply potable water to the latter community. The whole potential heavy metal contamination, impoverished First Nations thing is definitely already on their radar screen. As I've mentioned many times already, the scientific and engineering reports will be under political scrutiny.
There will be many agendas at play during the environmental assessment process, and some of those only tangentially related to environmental concerns, but using it to further other objectives. Canadian mining companies are under international scrutiny vis a vis their environmental and social impacts. IMHO, just as photos of big-eyed white coat seal pups are still used to politicize the seal hunt (even though white coats are protected by law), our First Nations and their communities will be front and centre in the permitting process. The new Mining Act ammendments guarantee that to be the case. And just as with the seal hunt becoming a symbolic/proxy battle for animal rights activists, the science and economics of the open pit mining of chromite will be forced to take a back seat to the "sound bites" of those who would question the future impacts of such a development.
Before my health issues disabled me, I worked in the world of environmental toxicology as a scientific consultant. I really thought my work would guide and limit the process of negotiating legislation and so on, but it was often not the case. The end result was always a political solution.
Whether a pit will be approved or not is beyond my predictive abilities. But I do predict delays in the permitting. Of that, I am certain.
Lar
