In the summer of 2022, Quebec’s eyes were fixed on Rouyn-Noranda. Where the Horne Foundry’s next right to pollute was being negotiated. This city became the scene of the arsenic crisis.
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Now, the second volume of this saga is being written. It’s not happening in the shadow of the eternal-as-hell chimneys, but under the foundry itself. Where Edmund Horne’s first gold deposit still lies. Now coveted for what remains of it.
Screwing up treatments
The BAPE took place. All interested parties have made their arguments. Recently, the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Public Health Department added its two cents. In fact, a real menhir.
A mine is fueled by blasting. Exploding rock thousands of meters underground to extract its gold makes the ground vibrate, even tremble more and more often. And that is incompatible with cancer treatments which require equipment adjusted to the millimeter. Otherwise, the right organs could be irradiated. Just that.
However, it turns out that the brand new cancer center, fully operational since just last June, is located above this future mine. A center to treat the world in the region, obtained after years of mobilization and time on the road for patients who had to travel to Montreal for treatments.
L’or inutile
But what is gold for? 93% of the precious metal that is so expensive and energy-intensive to extract is of absolutely no use. It is made into jewelry to adorn wrists, ingots to be stored in bank safes or columns of numbers for investors.
Even the argument of reviving a slowing economy does not hold water. Will common sense be a match for this yellow metal?
Don’t repeat the same mistakes
If at the height of the crisis, in 2022, people were wondering why on earth we built a foundry so close to a city, history forced us to answer that the foundry was there before the city.
However, this time, history has not yet been written.
In 2024, do we seriously want to consider building a mine under a city with all the risks that entails?
