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Trout Lake plant potential on hold

The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.

The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.

A plan to study the potential of Trout Lake mine as a centre for plant-based medicine production and research has been put on hold due to a lack of funding. The Manitoba Agri-Health Research Network (MAHRN) had planned to conduct a feasibility study this year to determine which plant-based health projects may be suitable for the fast-depleting mine. But Lee Anne Murphy, coordinator of the government-funded agency, said the provincial government declined a request to fund the study. "Until somebody within the government system feels that it's appropriate for a feasibility study, we're kind of stuck at not being able to advance," she said. "Without that, (there) remains lots of enthusiasm without sort of a grounding in fact, which is (where) a feasibility study would have helped us decide what to do next." Murphy said the mine's pending closure and HBMS's decision not renew its lease with Prairie Plant Systems, its medicinal marijuana-growing tenant, were factors in the funding rejection. "The long and short of it is, there just was a sense that there were too many uncertainties to work on a feasibility study at this time," she said. Though MAHRN believes in the potential of Trout Lake, Murphy said the Winnipeg-based agency does not have the resources to conduct a feasibility study on its own. While MAHRN promotes the research, production, marketing, development and commercialization of agricultural products for health purposes, its mandate is not strictly medicinal. The agency is also interested in seeing plants utilized to make foods healthier. MAHRN was attracted to Trout Lake for the same reasons as Prairie Plants. The mine is highly secure, cost-effective to heat compared to above-ground facilities, and eliminates the chance of modified plants spreading their traits to the general plant population. The broad-based feasibility study was to have helped MAHRN determine whether it would like to become a tenant in a mine that has already produced thousands of pounds of medical pot. Based on the findings, the door may have also opened to private biotechnology companies. Asked in the summer whether the mine has the potential to become a major centre for plant-based health research and production, Murphy was thoroughly optimistic. "I see no reason that it wouldn't be," she said, noting that MAHRN is "looking at global opportunities." "Having a year-round facility that's biosecure located in the province gives us an opportunity that not a lot of other places have," she added. The study would have examined possible usage both up to 2011, when the mine will close, and beyond. Since the subterranean growth chamber at Trout Lake produced marijuana for nearly a decade, it may appear to those on the outside that no feasibility study is needed Ð the mine can clearly serve this alternate purpose. But Murphy pointed out the marijuana operation proved the viability of only one particular product, so further investigation must take place before other projects can be deliberated. Prairie Plants had used a vacant portion of the mine to grow medical pot for Health Canada for distribution to authorized patients across the country. The operation made Flin Flon famous as the "Marijuana Capital of Canada," but Prairie vacated the mine over the summer after talks on a new lease with HBMS failed to produce an agreement.

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