This is sad, disgusting, scary. Apparently a million cubic metres of toxic sludge laws released from a containment pond. This stuff is caustic enough to cause chemical burns, and full of enough toxic metals to make things very unhappy for the receiving environment, and people, including the residents of several downstream towns.

A million cubic metres: picture an area the size of Queens Park, 10 feet deep, then spread out over an area almost three times the area of New Westminster. What a mess.

The story looks like a long, complicated one, with a company producing a bunch of the sludge and keeping it contained in a pond indefinitely with no real plan for how to dispose of it long-term. Local Environmental whackos have been asking the Government to address the situation since 2003, to no avail. That could never happen in Canada. Right?

More photos here