Twelve environmental groups are calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to save Fish Lake, home to 80,000 rainbow trout and sacred to the Tsilhqot’in First Nations. The groups are urging the Canadian government to follow the direction of its federal environmental assessment review panel and reject a proposed gold and copper mine that would destroy Fish Lake.

Despite First Nations opposition, Taseko Mines Ltd. plans to turn Fish Lake in central B.C. into a toxic tailings pond for a huge open-pit mine on the traditional lands of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation, a member of the Tsilhqot’in National Government.

The B.C. government issued a 25-year-mining lease to Taseko in June of this year. The following month, a federal environmental review panel reported that the Taseko mine would have significant adverse effects on the environment -- including to fish stocks and grizzly populations-- and on First Nations rights and title.

“We’re calling on the federal cabinet and Prime Minister Harper to respect the federal panel report which highlights the multiple adverse effects of this proposal, including impacts on First Nations rights and title,” said Larry Innes, Executive Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative. “Failure to honour these findings will not only harm the land and people of the region but will also harm relations between industry and other communities in the future by seriously undermining public confidence in the review process.”

The Harper government is expected to announce a decision on Taseko’s application as early as September 10. If the Taseko mine gets federal cabinet approval, it would be the first time the government has ever overruled negative findings from a Canadian Environmental Assessment Act review.

“It boggles my mind that we would even consider turning a world-class lake flanked by homes and aboriginal burial grounds into a toxic tailings pond,” said Sierra Club BC Executive Director George Heyman. “We must close the legislative loopholes that allow destruction of Canada’s freshwater bodies.”

Changes to the federal Fisheries Act allow metal mining corporations to use Canadian lakes as toxic tailings ponds. Fish Lake would be the sixth natural water body in Canada slated to be destroyed by toxic tailings if cabinet ignores the findings of the environmental assessment panel.

Groups supporting the Tsilhqot’in National Government and urging Harper to save Fish Lake include the Canadian Boreal Initiative, Sierra Club BC, West Coast Environmental Law, ForestEthics, Pembina Institute, Wilderness Committee, Greenpeace, BC Spaces for Nature, Georgia Straight Alliance, Sierra Club Canada, Wildsight and the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance.