My wife and family have resided in Kamloops for the past 32 years. It’s “home.”
My occupation for the past 52 years has been in diamond drilling and the mining industries as operations manager and vice president with drilling companies. I have been involved in open pit mines and underground operations all over the world.
Just to name a few; coal mines in New Brunswick, Alberta, and B.C.; potash in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan; copper mines in Chile, Argentina, U.S.A., and Canada; gold-silver in Alaska, North West Territories, Mexico, Mongolia, Turkey, Australia, Russia and many more.
I have worked in the largest open pit copper mines in the world, Chile, Lornex, Afton to name a few. These mines have employed thousands of workers and brought millions of dollars into the world economy. They are well run and there is very little impact on the surrounding area.
Dust is not a factor. The haul roads and pit area are watered 24/7 with water trucks. The heavy equipment, tractors, trucks, front end loaders, etc. are all equipped with catalytic converters on their exhaust systems. These are much like the same as your car or truck but much more sophisticated.
Let’s look at the economic spinoff. This proposed mine will employ 400. Let’s say half are married, that makes 600 people, each family have two children and total is then 1,000 people, Kamloops being the place to live.
Average wages for these 400 employees may be $100,000 a year, which equals $400 million per year times the proposed life of the mine, which is estimated at 23 years. That's a lot of money!
Most of that will be invested into the Kamloops economy. The federal income tax takes 30 plus percent, HST 12 percent. So you can see? The governments are on the mining side.
“Something to think about .“
JOHN CANTIN
Kamloops
