To: Minister of Environment and Climate, Kevin Klein

Tell the Stefanson government: the Vivian Sand Extraction Project is not worthy of a License.

Send letter to:

Minister of Environment and Climate, Kevin Klein [email protected]

The Honourable Kevin Klein
Minister of Environment and Climate
344 Legislative Building
450 Broadway
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8

Dear Minister Klein:

Re: Vivian Sand Extraction Project

I am writing to urge you to reject the licence application for the proposed Vivian Sand Extraction Project.

Our water is too precious, the technology is too unproven and there is too much crucial information missing in the environmental assessment for an extraction licence to be granted. The Vivian Sand Extraction license proposal fails to adequately address the harm posed by the project to our groundwater and environment.

The June 2023 Clean Environment Commission (CEC) report unanimously concluded that the CEC was “unable to state with confidence that all potential environmental effects of this project have been fully considered and that adequate detailed plans have been prepared for preventing or mitigating these effects.” (CEC Report, p xi-xiv)

Consistent with the commitment you made to taking the CEC’s report “very seriously,” I urge you to categorically reject the license application and any prospect of staged licensing.

If a new application is to be reviewed in the future, I ask you to make clear to both your department and Sio Silica that any new application must provide opportunity for and consider the public’s input at all stages of the project’s application, including in a public hearing at the CEC. Consideration should not be given to staged licensing as this approach would not consider the effects of all stages of the project cumulatively and in combination with impacts of other parallel activities.

Our community’s groundwater and environment are far too precious to proceed with a project with associated risks that are not fully understood and cannot be appropriately mitigated to protect our health and quality of life. Given the importance of our groundwater and environment and the significance of the potential risks, this project must be rejected.

Sincerely,

Why is this important?

June 23, 2023, Environment and Climate Minister Kevin Klein released the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission Report on the Sio Silica Corp proposed extraction project.

The Commission did not recommend licensing of the project - far more research is required.

Sio Silica’s Environment Act Proposal is severely deficient of critical data, studies and reports - Sio Silica has not done its due diligence.

Sio Silica’s Proposal should never have passed the initial Department of Environment and Climate screening - too many fundamentally important questions were not addressed.

Please write to the Honourable Kevin Klein urging the minister to be consistent with his commitment to take the Commission’s report “very seriously” and categorically reject Sio Silica Corp’s licensing proposal application on the grounds that they have failed to demonstrate the potential environmental effects of the project are fully understood or will be sufficiently addressed and mitigated.

Given the importance of our groundwater and environment and the significance of the potential risks, this project must be rejected.

For more information, please see:

http://www.cecmanitoba.ca/hearings/silica-sand-extraction-project/index.html

https://mbeconetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Letter-to-Minister-Klein_CEC_follow-up_July-19-2023.pdf

https://ourlineinthesandmanitoba.ca/ and
https://www.facebook.com/ourlineinthesandmanitoba/

The Narwhal https://thenarwhal.ca/manitoba-sio-silica-sand-environment-commission/

Winnipeg Free Press July 10, 2023 Editorial - Economics versus environment – Winnipeg Free Press