I thought Teck was going to do a different Tailing pond anyway?
I heard that Teck had optimized the tailings pond and already decided what to do with it. However, they are still required to produce a report showing all the possible options and cost them out, I guess, to prove that the option they chose was best.
It's not so much the reality of what Teck is doing, but the work required to show the EA people, or really so that the BC government can show they are being thorough. They even acknowledge in the letter that they "...recognize that this will require proponents to undertake additional assessments and may be more work than you had expected for the EA."