Redfern's Taku River plan raises new questions

New plans touse the Taku River, rather than a road, to service the proposed Tulsequah mine in northern B.C. will require a thorough environmental review, Transboundary Watershed Alliance spokesman David MacKinnon says.

Redfern Resources announced Monday thatit has abandoned plans to build a controversial 160-kilometre road from Atlin south to the mine site.

Company presidentTerry Chandler said instead they plan to usea river barge pulled by a tugboat tohaul supplies to the site and transport the oreto port.

Although MacKinnon said he's happy the company has decided not to build the road, he has reservations aboutusing the salmon-bearing river as a major transportation route.

"The road route was improperly assessed and it posed a very serious threat to fish and wildlife, so to see that set aside is a very positive development," MacKinnon said in an interview Monday. "The new proposal basically just raises a bunch of new questions."

He would like to see an independent review body do an environmental review of the proposal.

MacKinnon said the company's prediction the project will be able to move ahead within three to six months is overly optimistic.

"If you look at the history of this project, there's been an awful lot of predictions made around when mines would start up and when production would take place and so on, and there hasn't been a whole lot of accuracy in those predictions," he said.