The Vancouver Sun reports in its Monday edition the B.C. government has approved Pretium's $450-million Brucejack gold mine, the first since the collapse of the Mount Polley mine tailings dam last year. The Sun's Gordon Hoekstra writes assuming federal approval, construction of the mine is expected to begin this summer and will be in commercial production by 2017. The project northwest of Smithers will create 500 jobs during the two-year construction period and 300 permanent jobs during its 16-year life. The Ministry of Energy and Mines said instead of building a storage facility with a dam, Pretium will backfill about half its mine waste in a paste mixed with cement in the underground mine. The other half will be stored in the 100-metre-deep Brucejack Lake which, according to the company, has no fish. The tailings will take up about 40 metres of the lake's depth. The tailings design, in the works before the Mount Polley failure, made sense for a small, underground mine, said Pretium chief executive officer Robert Quartermain, who added he was "very comfortable" the mine would also get federal approval, given first nation support and the low environmental impact. B.C. has put conditions on Brucejack's approval.