April 29, 2021

Fifteen Mile Stream Gold Project Impact Assessment Agency of 200-1801 Hollis Street Halifax, , B3J 3N4

To Whom it May Concern,

On behalf of the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) and the Nova Scotia Salmon Association (NSSA), we are writing to provide our comments on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Fifteen Mile Stream Gold Project that is proposed by Atlantic Mining NS Corp (reference number 80152). ASF’s primary mandate is the conservation of wild Atlantic Salmon populations. As part of this mandate ASF advocates for habitat restoration; population and sub-population recovery efforts; and for improving the overall health of rivers, estuaries, and marine environments. Our comments reflect our concerns of environmental impacts of the proposed project to ecosystem health and restoration/recovery potential.

Wild Atlantic Salmon have experienced a dramatic decline since the 1990’s. The four distinct populations or designatable units (DU) within Nova Scotia (Inner - IBoF, Southern Upland - SU, Eastern Cape Breton - ECB, and Gaspe-Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence – Gulf) are not any different. In 2011, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) evaluated these populations and recommended that the IBoF, SU, and ECB DU be listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) as endangered (IBoF had been previously listed under SARA). The , including 15 Mile Stream where the project is proposed, is part of the SU DU which essentially contains all rivers south of a line drawn from Canso to Kentville.

Within the SU, the Eastern Shore region (Halifax to Canso) shows the best promise for salmon and ecosystem recovery. This region has been less impacted by acid rain that has devastated the SU and is, in general terms, more ecologically intact and is facing less issues for recovery (invasive species, fish passage, warming temperatures, etc.). Stock status and recovery potential assessment work conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in response to the COSEWIC assessment and as part of the SARA listing process identified that the some of the largest remnant populations of wild Atlantic Salmon in the SU are on the Eastern Shore and that freshwater restoration improvements will significantly reduce the risk of species extirpation. The importance of the Eastern Shore region was further confirmed by the Nova Scotia Salmon Association (NSSA). Their Watershed Assessments Towards Ecosystem Recovery for Aquatic Species at Risk (W.A.T.E.R.) project identified 8 priority watersheds for recovery in the SU, 4 of which are located within the Eastern Shore region (Musquodoboit, , Moser, St Mary’s Rivers). Two of these systems, the West River Sheet Harbour (NSSA) and the St. Mary’s River (St. Mary’s River Association - SMRA), already have large-scale research, restoration, and recovery programs in place. DFO is also engaged in research

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in the area as they are currently exploring a 200km2 Area of Interest (AOI) for a potential Marine Protected Area in the marine environment that receives water from the proposed project area. With its degree of intactness, lower number of barriers to recovery, larger remnant populations, and with a potential MPA and large scale restoration programs already in place, the Eastern Shore region, and all the rivers it contains including 15 Mile Stream, are of strategic importance in the broader species level restoration and recovery effort. This broader conservation context needs to be considered in evaluating the impacts of this project.

Additionally, the assessment for the proposed Fifteen Mile Stream Gold Project should take into consideration the context of the proponent’s other proposed developments in this region, the Beaver Dam and Cochrane Hill mines that are currently undergoing environmental assessments. Based on statements by the proponent in the media, this 15 Mile Stream proposal is connected, if not dependant, on these other developments gaining approval. While we will not address those other proposals here, they pose an even greater risk to conservation and ecosystem integrity due to the nature of those proposals and the proximity to the NSSA and SMRA’s recovery projects. In reviewing the EIS and developing the environmental assessment report for this project, it must first be determined that this project is achievable on a stand-alone basis from these other proposals. If this project is not determined to be independent, then the EIS must be redeveloped to incorporate these other projects.

In the EIS, it is made clear that diadromous species such as Atlantic Salmon and American Eel are not present within the study area. This absence is attributed to decline in water quality and lack of fish passage around the four major dams between the proposed project site and the estuary. While this is currently true, there is no guarantee that this will always be the case, especially as the tailings pond facility that will be constructed as part of this project will need to remain in place, in some form, well beyond the live span of the dams. This longevity must be considered in evaluating the environmental impacts of this proposed project.

As indicated, the absence of diadromous species from the freshwater environments of the East River Sheet Harbour is suspected to be caused by declines in water quality and lack of fish passage. Past efforts to address one of these issues, passage, but not the other did not yield success, which creates a catch 22, poor water quality leads to lack of investment in barrier mitigation and barriers to fish passage prevent investment or prioritization for water chemistry treatment. While this is not the responsibility of the proponent there are conditions that can reasonably be added within the context of this environmental assessment that will help address these limiting factors. The first of these conditions concerns water releases. The proponent intends to capture and contain penetrating ground water and all surface waters on the site to attempt to contain the release and prevent contamination from toxicants such as naturally occurring heavy metals unearthed during excavation, acid mine drainage and leachates forming in overburden and material storage piles, and chemicals added during the ore concentration process. These contaminated waters will be held in a tailings pond facility for a period to settle out these toxicants. Waters will need to be periodically released from this tailings pond facility to maintain pond levels, compensating for operational usage and rainfall. Released waters are higher in

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contaminants and warmer than natural inputs. As indicated by the proponent these released waters are monitored and treated, if necessary, to ensure they are within acceptable margins of background levels. However, as also identified by the proponent and in recent research (Dennis and Clair 2012; Minichiello et al 2014; Sterling et al. 2020) the waterways in the region, and in East River Sheet Harbour specifically, have depressed pH and elevated heavy metals concentrations, such as aluminum. These poor water quality parameters are widely accepted to be the result of acid rain and poor buffering capacity of the soils. So, the current water quality background levels are an artificial manmade condition and should not be considered an acceptable target. The proponent should be required to treat discharged waters to “normal” water quality standards and not just to background levels (e.g. released water should have a circumneutral pH, be at sublethal temperatures for salmonids, etc.). Failure to do so would perpetuate and exacerbate the current water quality issues and prevent recovery of endangered species. Holding the proponent to this reasonable standard will ensure that their activities are not contributing to a negative cumulative effect and are creating a net benefit to the system and the species within.

The second of these conditions concerns offsetting. As part of their development plan, the proponent is going to destroy fish and fish habitat, which they acknowledge in their EIS. As a consequence of this destruction the proponent will require authorization under the Fisheries Act from DFO and an offsetting plan to address the loss of fish and 80,573m2 of fish habitat. The proponent currently plans to offset these losses with the realignment of Seloam Brook Channel, constructing off- channel habitat, contributing to fisheries knowledge, and/or rehabilitation and restoration of degraded aquatic habitats. While this meets the requirements under the Fisheries Act for offsetting, it does not necessarily address cumulative effects now required for projects under the Fisheries Act, nor does it address the obvious limiting factor of fish passage. Addressing habitat concerns in this part of the watershed, which are largely inaccessible to most residents of the system and all diadromous species will have limited benefit to conservation or restoration. Under the revised Fisheries Act, offsetting projects are to have a performance-based approach. Therefore, we would suggest that the proponent be required in their offsetting to address fish passage issues. Addressing fish passage at just Ruth Falls Dam, which could be established with 250m natural bypass channel taking advantage of two natural ponds east of the dam, would address a major limiting factor within the system, facilitate further recovery actions, and open dozens of km of habitat.

Requiring the proponent to treat discharged water to standard levels as opposed to current background levels and having them address fish passage with their offsetting plan is reasonable expectation under an environmental assessment and the current regulatory regime. These conditions will help ensure the project is not contributing to ongoing water quality issues, is addressing limiting factors, and results in a net benefit for the aquatic environment and endangered species within.

In addition to these considerations and recommendations for the environmental assessment report, ASF also has several other concerns with the proposed project and recommendations for the environmental assessment report. These concerns include risk associated with the tailings pond facility, timing of water withdrawals, disaster mitigation/clean-up, and inconsistencies in the EIS.

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Tailings pond facilities need to be maintained, in some form, well beyond operation and decommissioning of the mine. Tailings pond facilities primarily work be settling toxic materials in a capture and contain approach to prevent them from negatively impacting or killing aquatic life. As previously mentioned, excavation will bring heavy metals that were trapped beneath the earth and inaccessible up into biosphere where they can interact with aquatic life. This potential toxic risk is exacerbated by acid mine drainage and chemicals used during concentration of the ore. As indicated in the EIS, the local soils are especially rich in pyrites that cause acid mine drainage and these natural occurring heavy metals, meaning that aquatic organisms living the already degraded waters (due to acid rain) could potentially be exposed to what would be lethal dosages of toxicants and contaminants. While the risk of exposure may be low over the short term, the lack of treatment means that this risk is perpetual and increases with time especially as climate change causes increases in frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events. Climate models provided within this EIS seemed to rely on historic norms (i.e., 1 in 100-year events) and did not emphasize the changes that have been occurring in recent years. We feel a more detailed modelling and analysis of the impacts of climate change should be generated for this project. We would also like to see that this already impacted system is protected against risk by ensuring the tailings facility is subject to the highest possible standard. Highest possible standard means requiring dry stack tailings with clay liners during construction and caps during decommissioning to reduce risk of seepage and possible interaction with water and aquatic organisms. The monitoring plan for water quality parameters should be comprehensive and rigorous during operation and continued periodically post decommissioning.

Even if dry stack tailings are employed, water will still be required to be withdrawn from local sources during construction and operation of the mine. Poorly timed water withdrawals can have significant negative impacts on aquatic organisms. A drastic example, which unfortunately has occurred with a drilling prospecting company on the West River Sheet Harbour, would be a water withdrawal that results in temporary dewatering of a stream or other natural water body. Even less drastic examples can still have significant negative consequences. Reducing base flow can change temperature profiles and alter distribution of aquatic organisms resulting in reductions in physiological capacity, changes in behaviour, and possibly even death. Therefore, water withdrawals associated with this project need to be timed for periods of excessive water flow and scheduled to avoid periods of drought, elevated temperature, and low flow periods when water bodies have been reduced to base flow levels. Current water withdrawal permits issued by NS Environment do not contain these requirements so they should be incorporated into the environmental assessment report.

Permitting and regulations will require the proponent to provide a repayable bond intended to cover the cost of site decommissioning and remediation should the proponent abandon the project prematurely. While this bond is an effective insurance measure to ensure that operations are not abandoned without decommissioning, it does nothing to hold the proponent accountable for clean-up and disaster remediation costs should a catastrophe occur. In the 2014 Mount Polley Disaster where a tailings pond facility failed releasing 25 million cubic meters of contaminated water and mine slurry into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake; it was shown that these bonds do not cover

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environmental damage due to accidents. No charges were laid against the company and a significant portion (~$40million) of the clean-up costs ended up being covered by the province (https://thenarwhal.ca/british-columbians-saddled-40-million-clean-bill-imperial-metals-escapes- criminal-charges/). Unfortunately, Earthworks in 2017 (https://www.earthworks.org/media- releases/new_study_74_of_us_gold_mines_pollute_water/) demonstrated that environmental damage at modern mines is not uncommon occurrence, as their research showed that 100% of the 27 producing goldmines in the USA had toxic spills and 75% had impacts on the surrounding water. In NS, the project proponent, Atlantic Mining NS Corp, is currently facing 32 environmental violations stemming from operations at their Touquoy mine site between 2018 and 2020 and the NS Government has committed millions to clean up 2 former gold mine sites (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/gold-mining-remediation-environment-government- funding-1.5224766). To ensure that environmental damage is remediated and that the project proponent will be accountable for damage remediation should an accident or catastrophe occur we feel that the proponent should be required as part of the environmental assessment to carry insurance for such events and that they pay into an environmental damage fund.

In reviewing, this EIS we were surprised to see a number of errors and incorrect assumptions utilized to support arguments for key components of the EIS. Errors and incorrect assumptions like Brook trout do not move long distances within rivers, choosing to sample for fish and fish habitat in many sub prime locations, incorrect statement on the relative locations of climate stations to the study site, and errors in eDNA testing. While we recognize that catching all mistakes when compiling over a thousand pages of documents is difficult and that some of these errors may not in themselves be substantial enough to change the outcome of some of the analysis, the number of scientific errors that we found, and the cumulative effect that these errors have on the analysis and conclusions is very concerning. For example, biasing the sampling for fish and fish habitat to small ephemeral and primary tributaries running between wetlands that would be primarily abundant cyprinid habitat makes it unlikely for the investigators to find salmonids or salmonid habitat reinforcing conclusions that little fish and fish habitat of consequence will be lost. If there were a greater focus on larger receiving waters of the project, then it is likely a greater impact would have been measured and more species would have been found. Similarly, the Environmental DNA data was flawed as it detected a Largemouth Bass and several Pacific salmon species - none of which are not present in NS - but failed to detect bullfrog as species known to exist in the area from anecdotal evidence. Appendix G-12 indicates that eDNA tests performed may detect species incorrectly, calling into question all conclusions drawn from this data and subsequent analysis. The cumulative number of these errors leads us to call into question the integrity of the fish and fish habitat analysis in this EIS and ask whether similar errors were made in modelling and other areas that we have less expertise to identify. We would like to we see the outcome of the technical review and a requirement to address the significant errors in analysis included in the environmental assessment report.

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In conclusion, our review of the EIS for this project found several deficiencies and areas of requiring improvement that we hope will be addressed by the environmental assessment report. Given the number of items that need to be addressed and the context that needs to be considered in evaluating, it is our view that this project that it should not proceed at this time. On behalf of ASF and the NSSA, we thank-you for considering our input during this public comment period for the Environmental Impact Statement for the Fifteen Mile Stream Gold Project that is proposed by Atlantic Mining NS Corp (reference number 80152).

Yours sincerely,

Kris Hunter Mike Crosby Program Director for NS and PEI President Atlantic Salmon Federation Nova Scotia Salmon Association 202 Cloverville Rd., Antigonish, NS, B2G 2M8 107 Farmers Dairy Lane, Bedford, NS B4B 2C9 Tel: 902-870-7210 │ [email protected] Tel: 902-625-0791 │[email protected] www.asf.ca www.nssalmon.ca

About ASF: The Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) is an international conservation organization established in 1948. The Federation is dedicated to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and the ecosystems on which their wellbeing and survival depend. ASF's headquarters are in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, with regional offices in each of the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, and Maine. ASF has a network of six regional councils (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Maine), over 100 affiliates and 25,000 members, which cover the freshwater range of wild Atlantic salmon in Canada and the United States.

About NSSA: The Nova Scotia Salmon Association (NSSA) is a multi-generational collection of passionate anglers and concerned conservationists representing the interests of over 25 river associations and their members, and the regional council of the Atlantic Salmon Federation for Nova Scotia We are a leader in watershed stewardship and innovative aquatic habitat restoration. We rally anglers to be the champion of anadromous salmon and trout in Nova Scotia – protecting the fish, their native waters, the surrounding lands, our privileges as anglers, and the importance of our relationship with wild species in our home province.

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