If a tree falls in a forest before an environmental licence is approved, is there a problem?

That's the question surrounding logging that's underway by a Bissett-area mining company.

An environmental group is outraged that San Gold Corporation was allowed to log almost 100 hectares of forest prior to obtaining an environmental licence to build a new tailings pond.

"The company isn't being fair to the community. Someone isn't being fair in the government of Manitoba, and it's a mess," said Wilderness Committee campaign director Eric Reder. "This was a 60- or an 80-year-old forest, and we're a long ways from ever getting that back."

However, San Gold and the province maintain proper procedures were followed for the mining company to get a logging permit.

Ian Berzins, chief operating officer for San Gold, said the deforestation happened in anticipation of the construction of the pond, which is awaiting environmental approval. Everything, he said, was done "by the book."

"We gained permission to remove the trees and then they were sent to a commercial facility. The company was actually required to pay stumpage fees to Manitoba Conservation in order to take the trees out, so we complied with all the requirements of that permit," said Berzins.

The licence to build the pond, which will be used to hold mining waste, is expected to be reviewed in the next few months after the 30-day public comment period ended on May 24.

Said a provincial government spokesman: "They had a logging permit issued."

However, the province is still taking a look at what has been happening in advance of the environmental licence.

"We take these allegations seriously and (Conservation and Water Stewardship) Minister (Gord) Mackintosh doesn't like them at all. He has senior officials investigating them on an urgent basis," the spokesman added.

The tailings pond would eventually replace the company's old pond, which drains into a tributary of the Wanipigow River, about 45 kilometres upstream from Lake Winnipeg.

The logging began in January and finished in mid-April, Berzins said, because logging in the winter is much easier than in the summer, especially since the area is swampy.

When Reder visited the site on June 7, he said the 98-hectare area, just east of Bissett, had been "razed."

"I stood on the ridge just stunned," he said.

San Gold said it expects to start construction of the tailings pond this summer.