“It’s positive for the community and the region.”
That was the District of Wells Mayor Ed Coleman’s reaction to Bakerville Gold Mines receiving an operating permit.
He said there’s no question about it that it’s a major decision.
“It’s been 4-years in the works. From the government’s perspective, it’s the first project under their new process for environmental standards. For us, we’ve been doing a lot of homework over the last 9-years to understand what this project looks like and we had lots of extensive work done for how to implement the impacts of such a large project.”
Coleman said they do have planning that’s done and some will become public now that the permit is announced.
“There will be some local employment. I think in part of the planning there’s a commitment of a fairly high percentage of employment within the Cariboo and Prince George region out of this project, that’s one of the requirements is that they’re making an effort to employ people from the region so it’s going to impact all of our communities.”
We asked Coleman what kind of a financial spin they’ll see from this project.
“We have a Community Agreement Table so we are definitely trying to understand the taxation revenues that come out of something like this so we’ve been in constant discussions. We’re hoping that out of the process we will see some tax benefit for the Municipality.”
Coleman said there have always been contributions from Osisko Development Corporation that owns Bakerville Gold Mines.
“There have been contributions to Barkerville to help with their programming and to Wells for our buildings. But now we’re going to see more of a consistent investment for our localized communities and we’re still understanding that our Agreement Table what that looks like,” Coleman said.
–Files by Pat Matthews, My Cariboo Now
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