N.B. health minister rules out mining in Moncton watershed
'That's unacceptable,' Mike Murphy says while admitting CVRD-Inco is looking for uranium
Last Updated: Thursday, June 21, 2007 | 4:31 PM AT
CBC News
Mike Murphy, New Brunswick's minister of health and MLA for Moncton North, says CVRD-Inco may be exploring for uranium in the city's watershed, but that's probably as far as it will go.
Moncton's drinking water is too precious to allow mining for uranium in the watershed, Murphy said.
"There's never going to be mining for uranium in the watershed of Moncton," Murphy said Thursday. "That's unacceptable. It's not going to happen."
The MLA for Moncton North admitted the company is looking for uranium in the watershed. The company said it's taking small soil and water samples as well as using a Geiger counter to measure radiation levels.
Murphy said it's part of a much bigger plan to see what sort of deposits exist in the southern part of New Brunswick.
"The testing so far, as I understand, is to determine the periphery of a uranium find and this testing has been going on in Moncton area right up to Jemseg."
Scott MacPhee, a spokesman for CVRD-INCO, said while the company doesn't explore just for the fun of it, he doubts a mine will be dug in Moncton's watershed.
'All we're asking is let us take a look and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it but I can tell you the track record in exploration is you do a lot of looking before you find anything and that's why new mines are few and far between," MacPhee said.
Murphy said he'll spend the next few days meeting people who are concerned about the exploration.
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