Dalhousie pozzolan mine takes next step toward approval, despite resident concerns | CBC News

A proposed mine in New Brunswick’s northernmost municipality of Heron Bay is one step closer to becoming a reality.

In mid-December, the local council passed a bylaw amendment that will allow the municipality to impose regulations on a mine or expanded quarry, should the project go ahead.

“Any company who wants to do any kind of gravel pit, sand pit, quarries in our municipality — or mine — they have to make an application to the Regional Service Commission,” said Mayor Normand Pelletier, who broke a 3-3 tie to pass the amendment.

At that third and final reading, some residents opposed to the mine complained they weren’t able to attend because the room quickly reached its 45-person limit. 

Gail Fearon, who lives in Dalhousie near the current quarry and proposed mine site, said she couldn’t get in the door, and that many of the attendees who were inside weren’t locals.

“They don’t live in the town,” she said. “A lot of them have never experienced what it is to live in an industrial town, which we’ve experienced since we were young.”

Fearon, who’s been outspoken against the mine from the beginning, said city council hasn’t been listening to residents about their concerns.

“They want only people that basically are going to agree with them or at the end agree with them with a few changes,” she said.

“But you know, I have no faith in big companies coming into areas and setting up shop and making promises.”

Steering committee to form

The company behind the mine, EcoRock Dalhousie Inc., hasn’t held a public meeting in the town since late September.

But general manager Francis Forlini said the company will soon be asking for residents’ input in a different way.

“We promised the population that we would create a steering committee for them to be able to participate and give some feedback and some input on all the engineering phases that we’re going to submit,” he said.

The committee will include three Heron Bay residents, a resident of the Gaspé region, two local business owners, an environmentalist, two scientists, a local municipal representative, and an EcoRock representative.

“Their mandate is go back to the population … and to basically inform people of what’s going on with the project,” he said.

“For us, it’s very important to be transparent on what we’re doing, where we’re at, where are we heading so that there’s no surprises for anybody down the line.”

Forlini also hopes an Indigenous representative will join the committee.

They already have 13 applications for the three seats for local residents, and Forlini said the final decision of who represents the community will be made by those applicants.

“We’ll put the 13 people in a room with a moderator and they can have a discussion and they’re going to elect within the 13, which ones are the three best candidates to represent the municipality of Heron Bay,” he said.

Forlini said the goal is to form the steering committee in late January, so it can begin looking at feasibility studies on the mine as soon as they’re ready.

Still a ‘conceptual’ project

The majority of 2025 will be dedicated to the feasibility study and an Environmental Impact Assessment, according to the EcoRock Dalhousie website.

After that, there are still many steps, including approval from the provincial and federal levels.

“We had some discussion also with the federal minister of environment last week. So we’re talking to everybody,” Forlini said.

As for whether the project could still be cancelled, he said nothing has been ruled out.

“When we submit our project with all the impact studies to the government of New Brunswick, if they don’t feel that we did a good job with the social acceptability piece, they might reject our permit,” he said.

“So of course, it could still be a possibility.”