Alberta government scientists have produced several studies about pollution from coal mining in the Rockies in recent years, raising questions from a B.C. conservation group about a lack of similar research from the B.C. government.

“The best research is coming out of Alberta,” Simon Wiebe, the mining impacts and policy lead for Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, said in an interview. “B.C. is lagging way behind.”

Research from aquatic scientist Colin Cooke, who works for Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, and his co-authors found historic coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass continue to pollute nearby waterways decades after closing, as well as concerning selenium concentrations in fish from Crowsnest Lake. He found snowpacks have been contaminated by windblown pollution from coal mines in southeast B.C. And more recently, he found selenium contamination downstream of three coal mines in the McLeod River watershed exceeded guidelines even after the mines had been partially, and in at least one case almost entirely reclaimed.

“This is a warning bell,” Wiebe said of the McLeod River watershed study. “It should be extremely concerning for everybody who has any interest in making the world a decent place for future generations,” he said.

It also raised questions for him, such as, “What’s going on in B.C.? Why aren’t we doing our own research?”

Coal mining is big business in B.C., employing thousands of people and contributing tens of millions in dollars to government coffers at all levels. But there are also long-standing concerns about environmental impacts from coal mining, including extensive water contamination — now the subject of an international inquiry.

In response to questions from The Narwhal, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said, “The Elk River watershed is one of the most intensively monitored and studied watersheds in British Columbia, with detailed programs to detect and assess impacts from coal mining and other development.” 

But that isn’t leading to peer-reviewed studies from government scientists. The spokesperson confirmed: “We do not produce publications for peer-reviewed journals.”

That’s a concern for Wiebe, who said independent, peer-reviewed studies like those produced by Cooke and his colleagues are “the gold standard, as they have no financial incentive to keep the status quo.” 

“All the independent research points to the same conclusion: coal mining produces huge environmental debts that will last for generations,” he said.

In the Elk Valley, leftover waste rock piles up as mountain tops are stripped to extract coal, and when those piles of rock are exposed to rain and snowmelt, naturally occurring contaminants like selenium leach into the water far more quickly than they would had no mining occurred. 

“When you take down a mountain, you end up really accelerating the natural weather processes of that rock,” Wiebe explained. “It causes a big problem.”

While all living things need selenium to live, too much of it can be toxic. For fish, its effect on reproduction is one of its most insidious threats. It can lead to deformities — curved spines, misshapen skulls, abnormal gills — and, in a worst-case scenario, reproductive collapse.

B.C. offers a ‘version of transparency’ but it’s ‘still not that useful’: scientist 

The spokesperson for B.C.’s Environment Ministry pointed The Narwhal to multiple sources of monitoring data and company monitoring reports and noted the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship is studying high elevation grasslands, including impacts from coal mining, which will lead to future publications.

The statement noted surface water is monitored at roughly 130 sites and that data is publicly available, as is water quality compliance and trend information. Groundwater is also monitored in more than 130 wells and there are extensive biological and aquatic effects monitoring programs underway, the spokesperson said.

Elk Valley Resources, which owns the four steel-making coal mines in southeast B.C., is required by the province to run more than 25 studies and monitoring programs in the Elk Valley, the statement added. And required reports on water quality, aquatic effects and fish population monitoring reports are available on the Elk Valley Resources website.

The spokesperson noted these reports must be completed by qualified professionals, and designs and drafts are reviewed by an environmental monitoring committee composed of scientists and technical experts from the B.C. government, Ktunaxa Nation Council and an independent scientist.

Bill Donahue, a freshwater scientist and a former head of environmental monitoring for the Alberta government, said B.C. has “a version of transparency and data availability that isn’t available in a lot of other provinces, but it’s still not that useful.”

It doesn’t appear, for example, that you can batch download selenium data for a period of time across an entire region all at once, he noted. 

He also raised concerns about the conflict of interest when industry is responsible for doing environmental monitoring and reporting. And while companies may be required to retain “qualified professionals,” he said the quality of work to meet regulatory standards is typically lower than what’s required for peer-reviewed scientific studies.

There’s also more transparency in peer-reviewed studies, he said. For one thing, it’s clear who did the work. Studies published in reputable journals are also reviewed by other independent scientists with relevant expertise who are not involved in the research, he noted.

The monitoring reports available from Elk Valley Resources, some of which are hundreds or thousands of pages long, are also not easily comprehensible to the public, he added. 

Donahue noted the abstract, introduction and conclusions of scientific studies typically offer a big-picture takeaway. “You don’t tend to see that in these big regulatory reports,” he said. 

Wiebe credited B.C. with working to hold Elk Valley Resources and the mines’ previous owner Teck Resources accountable for water pollution with some measure of success, but said, “it is clear much more needs to be done.”

Meanwhile, scientific research is being produced in neighbouring Alberta, but there are concerns the government is muzzling scientists and stalling the release of studies. Internal emails and records obtained by The Narwhal through a freedom of information request show senior government officials delayed the submission of Cooke’s McLeod River watershed study for four months after it was complete and seemingly prevented him from participating in at least two media interviews or speaking about his research to a community group. In a statement to The Narwhal, Ryan Fournier, press secretary to Environment and Protected Areas Minister Rebecca Schulz, said the Alberta government takes the issue very seriously, noting internal reviews before publication “are standard practice and necessary.”

In a previous interview, Donahue, a co-author on the McLeod River study, raised concerns Alberta had viewed monitoring as a box-checking exercise. 

“The only thing that’s really of use publicly is an expert analysis of monitoring data and then an interpretation in a way that is comprehensible to the public,” he said.

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B.C.’s minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship hopes to start working with the federal government toward a strategy to prevent train-wildlife collisions in the new year.

“It’s really concerning,” Randene Neill said in an interview with The Narwhal this week. “I wasn’t aware that the numbers are that high.”

Neill’s comments follow The Narwhal’s investigation into wildlife strikes in B.C., produced in partnership with CBC and the Global Reporting Centre. It showed hundreds of animals are killed on tracks owned and operated by Canada’s two major railway companies: Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC).

The railways are required to report collisions to the B.C. government, but records obtained through freedom of information requests show reporting is both inconsistent and incomplete, obscuring the full scale of the problem.

“Now it’s definitely, definitely on our radar and we’re going to work to do what we can to work with the federal government and to reduce those types of collisions,” Neill said.

However, neither Ottawa nor B.C. seem willing to accept full accountability for the issue of train-wildlife collisions. Neill said the federal government has jurisdiction over transnational railways, suggesting any new regulations must ultimately come from Ottawa.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Transport Canada Minister Steven MacKinnon said the provincial government has authority over the issue. 

“As wildlife-railway collisions fall under provincial jurisdiction, we look forward to working with the Government of British Columbia on how we can best assist in addressing this issue,” a statement from the federal minister’s office said.

In response, a spokesperson for the B.C. ministry said, “While the province compiles provincial data and is responsible for wildlife management in B.C., the onus is on the federally-managed railways to manage this issue — not on B.C.’s wildlife to stop getting hit.”

Train collisions with wildlife take a toll 

The B.C. ministry is currently compiling data on wildlife collisions, which are reported to the province through various channels. “Getting those numbers and being able to really target those problem areas is important and probably a first step,” Neill said.

Asked whether she would commit to releasing the data, Neill said she would work to make it public, calling it “an important part of the process.” 

For now, it remains unclear exactly how many animals are struck and killed by trains in B.C. 

In the Elk Valley in the province’s southeast, collisions with trains and vehicles on Highway 3 are a leading cause of death for grizzly bears, according to wildlife scientist Clayton Lamb. 

Lamb has been monitoring bears in the area for more than a decade. In a particularly jarring incident he followed a few years ago, a mother grizzly and her three cubs were killed in a single collision with a train along the Elk River near Elko, B.C.

When Lamb arrived at the scene, he found the cubs lying in a row on the dry riverbed just below the train bridge and the mother’s body farther down the tracks.

The grizzly population in the area is dense and fairly stable, but with a high mortality rate, it’s not self-sustaining, Lamb said. Instead, it’s propped up by bears moving in from other areas like the Bull River, Flathead Valley and Kananaskis. Lamb’s concern is the steady stream of bears could one day dry up as more habitat is lost to development. “We don’t know the tipping point at which that fairly complicated dynamic will stop working,” he said.

Trains regularly strike wildlife in other areas as well, according to locomotive engineer Jim Atkinson, who worked for CN for more than three decades before retiring in 2008. For years, he travelled the picturesque route between Jasper National Park in Alberta and Blue River, B.C.

Wildlife collisions were “a huge issue,” he said. Whenever he saw an animal on the tracks, Atkinson would blow the whistle repeatedly, hoping to scare it out of harm’s way. At night, he’d also shut off the headlights, hoping to give it a better chance of escape by preserving its night vision. But it wasn’t always enough. Especially when winter snow was piled high on either side of the tracks, animals would too often choose the most obvious path and run straight down the tracks in a futile attempt at escape, he explained.

“You can’t see what’s going on because it’s dark and you’ve got the headlights off and you’re blowing the whistle and ringing the bell as hard as you can and then you hear them go underneath the engine,” he said. “It was difficult.”

But stopping wasn’t a feasible option — trains need up to two kilometres on average to slow to a stop.

Neill, a former journalist, said she’s observed the risks herself. She recalled seeing deer eating spilled grain along the railway tracks in the winter in Brandon, Man., where she began her journalism career. Now, she says she’s willing to work at reducing collisions not only in B.C. but across the country.

Companies ‘obscuring the facts to secure their bottom line’: BC Green Party leader

The Narwhal reached out to both the BC Conservatives and the BC Greens for comment on this story, but did not hear back from the Conservatives ahead of publication.

In an interview BC Green Party leader Emily Lowan called for an overhaul in the way the railways’ risks to wildlife are managed.

“It’s horrific,” she said. “And it’s the same story that we’ve seen across B.C. — massive corporations like CPKC and CN are obscuring the facts to secure their bottom line at the expense of our wildlife, our workers and our environment.”

“It seems like our government has completely abandoned its duty to hold these massive corporations accountable,” she said.

In response, Neill said transnational railways fall under federal jurisdiction. 

While railways are required to report strikes under B.C.’s Wildlife Act, Transport Canada previously told The Narwhal there are no specific requirements under the federal Railway Safety Act focused solely on train-wildlife collisions.

“We definitely want them to improve what they can to reduce these collisions and we’re willing to absolutely work with them to do that,” Neill said.

Both CN and CPKC previously told The Narwhal they report wildlife strikes to the B.C. government and take steps to reduce collisions. CN noted it continues to make investments in technology and pointed to specific efforts in Jasper National Park and northern B.C. where the company has installed limited fencing to reduce wildlife strikes. CPKC, meanwhile, said it has replaced about 6,000 older grain cars and manages vegetation along the tracks to avoid attracting wildlife and to give animals a clear escape path.

In a follow-up statement Thursday, a CPKC spokesperson reiterated a previous comment noting the company views this as “a complex problem, with no simple solutions” and continues to work with federal and provincial governments to reduce collisions.

CN did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment ahead of publication.

Researchers say there are potential solutions companies could deploy more broadly. These include using an early warning system to alert wildlife to oncoming trains, installing targeted fencing in high-risk areas, reducing grain leaks and spills and removing carcasses to avoid attracting other animals to the tracks and enhancing wildlife trails to give animals better alternative travel routes.

Both Lowan and Neill noted collisions aren’t just an issue for wildlife populations, but also for the locomotive engineers, who must deal with the trauma of hitting animals on the tracks.

“It’s in everybody’s interest to be able to work together to reduce those collisions,” Neill said. 

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At least 12,959 wild animals died on B.C. roads and highways between January 2023 and May 2025 — thousands of deer, hundreds of bears and coyotes, dozens of beavers and skunks killed in collisions. 

That’s only the fraction of animals killed by vehicles captured in the provincial wildlife accident-reporting system. Animals that fled the roadside before succumbing to their injuries and scores of amphibians crushed by passing cars often aren’t counted, meaning the true toll is likely much greater. 

Roads and highways are a problem for wildlife across the country and around the world: snapping turtles are regularly killed in Ontario, as are mountain lions in California and kangaroos in Australia. And it’s not just wildlife at risk when cars hit animals. People can be seriously injured or killed, too. These collisions can also be expensive. In B.C. they can cost about $40 million in insurance claims alone each year, according to estimates from Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) based on data from 2009-2013. A spokesperson for ICBC said they could not provide updated data by publication time.

Governments in Canada and elsewhere have tried different measures to prevent collisions, including posting signs to warn drivers to look out for wildlife and testing wildlife detection systems to alert drivers when animals are on the road. But the gold standard so far is a combination of fencing and crossing structures — like those in Banff National Park.

Banff “really taught us a lot,” says Clayton Lamb, a wildlife scientist with the research institute Biodiversity Pathways. 

About 82 kilometres of highway were fenced and 44 crossing structures constructed in the famed national park beginning in the 1980s, when the Trans-Canada Highway was expanded from two lanes to four through the park. The wildlife system cut collisions by more than 80 per cent, according to Parks Canada. While these systems are expensive to build — the Banff system cost tens of millions of dollars — they can save money in the long run. Fewer collisions means less money spent on health care and insurance payouts.

In B.C.’s Rocky Mountains to the south, work is now underway on a project that aims to fence almost 30 kilometres of Highway 3 and retrofit a series of existing bridges to reduce collisions and give animals a safer way to cross the road. The project, called Reconnecting the Rockies, continues into neighbouring Alberta, where another 50 kilometres of fencing and crossing structures are partially complete. In this corridor alone, more than 300 collisions with large animals are reported each year.

“This project is designed to mirror that success in Banff and bring it to Highway 3,” Lamb, the lead scientist for the B.C. side, explains. 

Crowsnest Highway endangers wildlife, restricts animal movement

Driving the highway in early June, Lamb points out a blood splatter in the middle of the road and a bald eagle in the ditch, feeding on the remains of a whitetail deer likely hit that morning. It’s one of the insidious challenges of roadkill — when one animal is hit its carcass can attract another to the road, putting that animal in a risky spot as well. 

Highway 3, also known as the Crowsnest Highway, is the winding southern route across B.C., running from Hope through Osoyoos, Creston and Cranbrook all the way to Medicine Hat in Alberta.

The Reconnecting the Rockies project zeroes in on an 80-kilometre stretch running from outside Hosmer, B.C., to Lundbreck, Alta. The hope is it will eventually extend through the rest of the Elk Valley as well.

The Elk Valley is a complicated place. It’s home to a wide array of wildlife, like grizzly bears, elk, deer and bighorn sheep, and the habitats that support them. It also serves as a vital link between major protected areas like Banff to the north and Montana’s Glacier National Park to the south. At the same time, it’s home to several growing communities, mountain-top removal coal mines and a busy transportation corridor in Highway 3 and the railway, which trains carrying coal, grain and numerous other products travel every day. 

The highway is a challenge for a couple of reasons. It’s a barrier to animal movement, which can make it difficult for species to travel farther distances in search of food or mates, limiting a population’s gene pool and generally making an animal’s world smaller. More directly, animals are killed when they try to cross the road.

Most collisions between Jaffray, B.C., and the Alberta border involve elk and deer, with roughly 90 elk and 50 deer hit each year, according to a Reconnecting the Rockies progress report for 2020 to 2024.  

“It doesn’t seem consistent with how we want to relate to wildlife that are iconic and important to many people,” Lamb says. “And from a hunting and cultural harvest and food security standpoint, it’s also a bunch of elk that are being wasted.”

Jason Gravelle, the acting chief administrative officer for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it, which is part of the Ktunaxa Nation, agrees. 

While not every member of his nation is reliant on locally harvested food, elk have become an important food source, he says, adding “We can’t head over the mountains to go hunt buffalo anymore.” 

With so many elk killed on the highway, the crossings project is “definitely needed,” he says. And it’s not just elk and deer at risk. A third of all reported grizzly bear collisions in B.C. happen in the Elk Valley, even though the area accounts for just one per cent of grizzly habitat in the province, according to Lamb’s research. For grizzlies in this region, it’s a leading cause of death. 

Choosing where to put wildlife crossings

Reconnecting the Rockies is the result of a broad collaboration involving the B.C. and Alberta governments, Parks Canada, conservation groups, First Nations, scientists and Elk Valley Resources, which operates several coal mines in the area. 

In B.C., it broke ground in 2020. By the end of 2024, fencing had been installed along 4.2 kilometres of highway and six underpasses had been retrofitted to make it easier for wildlife to cross the busy road. So far, B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation and Transit says it has spent about $3.7 million on the project.

There’s still a long way to go before the project as envisioned is complete, but monitoring shows wildlife is already using some of the upgraded underpasses more frequently.

Lamb walks down a gentle slope next to the Loop highway bridge that spans Michel Creek, about 10 kilometres east of Sparwood.

“This was just a wall of no access,” he says. The slope used to be steeper and it was almost entirely blocked off by old concrete footings and rebar.

Today, there’s a wide, gentle lane that runs down to the creek and alongside it below the highway. “It’s a beautiful underpass,” Lamb says. “It’s super comfy and elk can tell that there’s not, like, a cougar waiting on the other side.”

Another retrofit, at the Alexander Creek bridge, saw a path cleared through the protective wall of big, loose rocks that once angled sharply into the creek. 

In B.C., the project has so far focused on retrofitting existing road infrastructure to improve crossings. In large part because it’s the most cost-effective option, but it can also transform existing infrastructure into great wildlife crossings.

The Loop bridge underpass would have cost millions to build from scratch, Lamb said. Retrofitting the existing highway bridge over the creek meant creating an “amazing” wildlife underpass for a fraction of the cost.

But not every effort has been a success. Even with fencing and a new trail beneath the bridge, the Carbon Creek underpass is far from ideal, Lamb says. There’s not much clearance between the bridge and the creekside path and there’s poorer visibility than at more spacious underpasses. Wildlife only uses it occasionally. 

Gravelle said Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it cautioned the Reconnecting the Rockies team to do its homework before choosing crossing sites. They should be selected based on how wildlife uses the area, not what’s cheapest from an engineering perspective, he said.

“That’s something you always have to be careful of — they can look really good as dots on the map, but are they functionally big enough?” Lamb says.

Other existing underpasses were better suited to retrofits, especially those already proving useful. “We’ve had remote cameras under a lot of these structures before anything has been done to them and there are already animals using them even without fencing or any improvements on our end,” Lamb said. In some cases, those wildlife crossings increased two or three times after retrofits were complete.

There are also proposals to build new, dedicated crossing structures in particularly important corridors for wildlife. These include a wildlife bridge a few kilometres west of the provincial border. 

Meanwhile in Alberta, a major new underpass, which was estimated to cost about $10 million, was recently completed just west of Lundbreck. About 27 per cent of wildlife collisions recorded between Lundbreck and the B.C. border between 2018 and 2022 took place along a 7-kilometre stretch of Highway 3 where the new underpass is located. 

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Some of the hardest calls came in the middle of the night. An elk hit by a train. Its back was broken, or its legs crushed, and it was still alive. Frank de Boon struggled with those calls. There was nothing he could do until daylight. 

When morning came, he’d hike down the tracks, gun slung over his shoulder, to find the injured animal and put an end to its suffering. 

Most conservation officers get into it to protect animals or police fish and wildlife crime, de Boon said. He didn’t expect he’d have to euthanize so many elk and deer maimed on the railway. But it was a regular part of the job he did for 30-odd years in B.C.’s Elk Valley. 

“I think all conservation officers were concerned about it,” he said. “We were seeing it all the time.”

The B.C. government was alerted decades ago to the railways’ impact. In 1982, a wildlife biologist for B.C.’s environment ministry warned trains were killing hundreds of moose every year in the Central Interior alone. He said better reporting was needed to understand the true scope of the problem and cautioned that “failing to research solutions to recurrent rail-moose collisions now will, in time, prove to be an embarrassment.”

Companies are supposed to report rail kills to the B.C. government under the Wildlife Act, which requires any person who kills or injures wildlife accidentally to report the incident and location. But records obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information requests show reporting is both inconsistent and incomplete, meaning B.C. still doesn’t have a clear sense of how big this problem really is. 

A handful of internal emails suggest at least some government biologists and conservation officers have been frustrated and keen to see better reporting and fewer strikes. One document summed up the sentiment succinctly: “Railway companies are difficult or impossible to work with.”

Wildlife collisions ‘generally under-reported’: government document  

In emailed statements to The Narwhal, both Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railway companies said they report wildlife strikes to the B.C. government and take steps to reduce wildlife mortality on their railways. 

Between 2020 and the end of 2023, CN reported at least 340 wildlife collision incidents in B.C., including 202 incidents involving moose and 67 involving bears, according to a spreadsheet the B.C. government released to The Narwhal. 

Those numbers likely don’t capture the full extent of railway strikes. In 2021, for instance, it appears the company reported just four collisions, compared with 120 the year before and 136 the year after. 

In a statement, CN spokesperson Ashley Michnowski said “wildlife collisions can and do occur, despite our efforts to reduce them,” but did not address the inconsistency in the 2021 data. 

Despite the discrepancies, CN’s reporting does include dates, times and GPS locations for strikes — information scientists would need to identify collision hotspots. It’s also collected in a spreadsheet, which means the data can be analyzed more easily.

Documents The Narwhal obtained from the B.C. government show CPKC reports wildlife strikes to the Conservation Officer Service, which records the incidents in human-wildlife conflict reports. 

The Narwhal reviewed more than 350 pages of those reports and found CPKC reported trains hit about 182 animals in the Kootenays in 2022 and 2023, including at least 90 elk, 49 deer, 18 black bears and eight grizzlies. 

The company declined to comment on the wildlife strike numbers beyond reiterating that it reports collisions to relevant authorities.

However, internal records suggest at least some government officials are concerned railway companies are failing on that front: “Collisions are generally under-reported,” according to a document titled “Railway collision file — fast facts.” A ministry spokesperson said the document summarizes the results of a simple, non-scientific survey undertaken to help government staff learn more about wildlife collisions. According to the summary, the survey identified 53 dead elk along a 60-kilometre section of track in the Kootenays during the winter of 2022/2023.

While surveys have been used in some areas to monitor collisions, those efforts have not been expanded, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said in a statement. “We continue to engage with CN and CKPC about survey opportunities.”

The ministry said it is working to collate data on rail-wildlife collisions, but the spokesperson noted it will take time to pull information from numerous sources. 

At the same time, the ministry is working to review and streamline requirements, improve data collection and assess options for reducing collisions, the spokesperson said.

An ‘out of sight, out of mind’ problem

Neither CPKC nor CN agreed to be interviewed by The Narwhal and instead sent statements in response to emailed questions. 

CN spokesperson Michnowski said trains need up to two kilometres to slow to a stop, on average, which can make it challenging to avoid collisions with wildlife.

She added that the company works to reduce wildlife mortality through various initiatives. In northern B.C., for instance, CN has led a wildlife mortality working group for more than 15 years. Alongside surveys to monitor collisions with moose, the working group has installed exclusion fencing along 6.8 kilometres of railway to keep moose off the tracks.

“We continue to invest in technology and work closely with government agencies to ensure safe, sustainable operations across our network,” Michnowski added.

In a separate statement, CPKC spokesperson Terry Cunha said the company works with Parks Canada, the B.C. government and other experts to reduce wildlife conflict. Clean-up crews respond to grain spills, which can attract wildlife to the tracks, Cunha said, noting the company has replaced nearly 6,000 older grain cars in the last several years.

Cunha added that CPKC also manages vegetation to reduce plants that might attract animals, improve wildlife sight-lines and give animals room to safely get off the tracks.

“This is a complex problem, with no simple solutions,” he said.

Neither company responded to questions asking how many collisions each reported to the B.C. government in 2024 and 2025. The ministry did not provide this information either.

In the Elk Valley of southeast B.C. — part of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation — the railway is just one of many challenges wildlife contends with today. Mountaintop removal coal mines, logging, growing communities and the Crowsnest Highway have all dramatically transformed habitats. But the railway’s toll gets little attention.

Jason Gravelle, the acting chief administrative officer for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation questions why there’s seemingly been no repercussions for the railways. “There’s no accountability for their actions,” he said. 

People aren’t generally out walking on the railroad tracks, so they don’t see the carcasses. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,” he said. But Gravelle, like de Boon, has seen the issue in the Elk Valley first-hand — the remains of elk and other animals killed on the railway.

For some Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it members, elk have become an important food source, he said. “We can’t head over the mountains to go hunt buffalo anymore.”

He used to work for Nupqu, a Ktunaxa-owned consulting firm, collecting water samples, sometimes at sites right along the railway. He saw animals killed on the tracks a couple times a month, he said. They’d feed on the grain that leaked from passing trains and when they got hit, their carcasses drew in the bears.

Railway collisions threaten Elk Valley grizzly population 

When wildlife scientist Clayton Lamb began monitoring local grizzly bears with GPS collars more than a decade ago, the risks of the railway really started to come into focus for him. 

When I visited the Elk Valley with photojournalist Leah Hennel in early June, Lamb took us to the site of one of the more intense collisions he’s seen.

He turned down a narrow cut off a logging road just outside Elko, B.C. There was dense brush, lush and green with fresh spring growth, on either side, and just enough space between for his Ford F-150 to roll through. 

He pulled into a clearing near a rail bridge that crosses the Elk River. It was here, just a few years ago, that a train killed a mother grizzly and her three young cubs. 

Lamb had been monitoring the mother for a couple years by that point. He collared her on a rainy day in September 2019, just south of Fernie, and tagged her as EVGF97. Colloquially, he called her Willow. 

He spotted her from a helicopter the next spring with a male and made a note to watch for young the following year. Sure enough, in May 2021, he spotted her again, this time with three cubs. 

Willow’s home range was pretty compact, about 15 kilometres wide, Lamb said. And, like a lot of bears in the Elk Valley, she spent a fair bit of time up in the mountains. But she’d wander down into the valley floor near Elko every now and then, more often in the fall. It’s the time of year when grizzly bears are trying to pack on fat for their winter hibernation and the valley offers up a buffet. But it comes with risk.

“It’s hard to not cross a road or cross a highway or bump into a town when you’re a bear living in the Elk Valley,” Lamb said. “They navigate a pretty challenging landscape.” 

Over more than a decade, Lamb collared and monitored dozens of bears, each one offering insights into the unique, and fragile, dynamics that allow the species to survive in a valley chock full of potential threats.  

Today, there’s a dense and fairly stable grizzly population. But Lamb warns it’s not self-sustaining. Instead it’s propped up by bears moving in from other areas: the Bull River, the Flathead Valley, Kananaskis. The concern is the steady stream of bears could one day dry up as more habitat is lost to development. “We don’t know the tipping point at which that fairly complicated dynamic will stop working,” he says.  

Lamb pulls two damaged GPS collars from the back of his truck. One, made of Kevlar, a synthetic fabric known for its remarkable strength, was cut in half by a train that struck and killed the grizzly that was wearing it. The other sustained so much damage in another collision the lithium-ion battery caught fire. That bear died too.

Willow was killed in early October, when the forested hillsides were awash in the gold and orange hues of fall. Lamb was in Cranbrook, about a 45-minute drive away, when he got the call.

He found the cubs lying in a row on the dry riverbed just below the train bridge. And up on the tracks, a severed paw, a pile of intestines and a ways down, Willow. 

“Four dead grizzly bears was an intense collision,” he said.

Lamb suspects the train probably surprised Willow and her cubs. In a state of shock, the bears likely saw the path of least resistance — straight down the track — as their best chance of survival. It’s like tunnel vision, Lamb said: they didn’t see the escape paths into the bush on either side. 

Retired train engineer says more needs to be done to prevent collisions

That tunnel vision is something Jim Atkinson, a retired locomotive engineer, witnessed again and again. 

Atkinson spent more than three decades working for CN before retiring in late 2008. For years, he travelled the picturesque route between Jasper National Park in Alberta and Blue River, B.C., cutting through the rugged Rocky Mountains and following the meanders of two mighty, salmon-bearing rivers — the Fraser and North Thompson. He saw all manner of wildlife on those trips: moose and elk, bears and wolves, ravens and eagles. 

When he spotted an animal on the tracks, Atkinson did what a lot of train engineers do: he blew the whistle repeatedly, hoping the sharp noise would scare it out of harm’s way. It worked sometimes, more often in the summer when the shoulders were clear. But in the winter, when piles of snow lined either side of the tracks, animals would too often choose the only clear path in front of them and attempt, often futilely, to escape the immense steel predator barrelling after them by running straight down the tracks. 

“It was a big issue, a huge issue in the winter,” Atkinson said.

Stopping the train often wasn’t a feasible option. A locomotive engineer can’t just slam on the brakes like a driver can in a car. It takes time for a train to slow to a stop, Atkinson said. And engineers often don’t have that much time to react when they spot an animal on the tracks. 

Night posed an added challenge. “The headlight would blind them,” Atkinson said. “They couldn’t see and they couldn’t judge where the train was and how fast it was going.” Whenever he saw animals on the tracks at night, Atkinson would quickly turn off the headlight, hoping to give them a better chance of escape by preserving their night vision. It didn’t always work.

“That was very stressful,” he said. “You can’t see what’s going on because it’s dark and you’ve got the headlights off and you’re blowing the whistle and ringing the bell as hard as you can and then you hear them go underneath the engine.”

“It was difficult,” he said. “It was difficult.”

Atkinson said other engineers and rail workers shared his concerns about the piles of grain and corn the trains left behind, the snowbanks that blocked escape routes in the winter. As a union representative, he took those concerns to CN management, but said little was done, at least while he was there. 

In a statement, CN spokesperson Michnowski said the company “takes accuracy and accountability very seriously. We are continually learning and enhancing our processes to ensure we operate as a safe, sustainable railway while reliably serving our customers and supporting the North American economy.”

Grain train derailment spurred couple to keep pushing for solutions  

Judy Taylor-Atkinson, Atkinson’s wife, was a founding member of the Jasper Environmental Association. After hearing the gruesome stories about wildlife being killed on the railway and highway in Jasper National Park, she was keen to see something done about it. Working with Parks Canada, the group pushed CN to act. 

They did see some progress. The railway bought a vacuum truck to clean up spilled grain over a section of track in the park and installed fencing to keep bighorn sheep out of a tunnel where there had been collisions in the past, Taylor-Atkinson remembers. But it wasn’t enough, she said.

​​The Atkinsons grew even more concerned in the mid-aughts, after a train derailment outside Blue River spilled a huge amount of grain. At least eight bears were spotted near the tracks in the aftermath, Atkinson remembers. That’s when the couple took their concerns to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service.

When I met them in a conference room at their condo complex in a suburb of Vancouver, they had a stack of government documents they’d obtained through freedom of information requests. They also had a handful of old photos of bears on the train tracks — evidence of a longstanding problem.

According to those records, which The Narwhal reviewed, a conservation officer recommended in 2007 that CN be investigated for a series of alleged contraventions. The accusations included failing to report grain spills from two major train derailments north of Blue River in 2006 and 2007, which the officer said was required under the spills reporting regulation. The company was also accused of failing to report that two wolverines, two grizzly bears and as many as 50 moose had been killed along 60 kilometres of track, a pattern that was “allegedly occurring throughout the province of British Columbia,” the officer wrote.

CN did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions about these incidents. 

In a statement, a B.C. government spokesperson said it’s an offence to leave attractants out for dangerous wildlife, but noted moose, deer and other ungulates are not defined as dangerous wildlife under the Wildlife Act. When asked about the outcome of the conservation officer’s report into the company’s alleged contraventions, the spokesperson directed The Narwhal to the Transportation Safety Board. A spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board confirmed the derailments and said the company had reported both to the board. 

Almost two decades later, the Atkinsons remain concerned that wildlife is still killed on the railway — and they’re not alone.

Even years after he retired, conservation officer de Boon still worries about the toll the railway takes on wildlife. 

In the Elk Valley this spring, he showed me the small piles of corn left by a passing train, and nearby, the carcass of a whitetail fawn. He showed me the field where a herd of elk comes to feed in the waning evening light, and maybe half a kilometre away on the railway, the mangled remains of an elk swarming with flies.

“Look at the money that’s being spent now on fencing the highways, and yet the railway track right beside the highway is having the same carnage, but nobody’s seeing it, so they’re not nearly as averse to it,” he said.

Credits:

Rail data analysis for this story was provided by the Global Reporting Centre at the University of British Columbia as part of its reporting collaboration on the rail industry led by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. Through this work, The Narwhal connected with CBC, which produced its own on-the-ground reporting in B.C. informed by our findings.

Reporter:  Ainslie CruickshankVisualizations: Andrew MunroePhotography: Leah Hennel and Jimmy JeongEditors: Lindsay Sample and Denise BalkissoonFact-checking: Will PearsonAdditional fact-checking: Britnei Bilhete and Joy SpearChief-Morris, CBCVisualizations made with Protomaps, MapLibre and deck.gl

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In the midst of an international inquiry into transboundary water pollution from southeast B.C. coal mines, Elk Valley Resources has submitted a revised proposal for new mining in the region.

Teck Resources, the previous owner of the coal mines, initially proposed the Fording River Extension Project five years ago. In 2023, the provincial government directed the company to submit a revised proposal following a dispute resolution process initiated by the Ktunaxa Nation Council, which opposed the project over the risk of “extraordinarily adverse effects.”

In the intervening years Teck shifted its focus to copper, selling its coal business in a US$9-billion deal to Swiss mining giant Glencore and two other companies. Glencore now holds a majority stake in Elk Valley Resources, which operates the four active coal mines in the area.

The revised project description for the Fording River expansion, which Elk Valley Resources submitted to B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office last month, proposes a two-phase approach to developing a smaller mine, with a shorter lifespan, with plans to restore mined areas incrementally throughout operations rather than waiting until mine operations have ended. It also limits the risks from waste rock dumps to a creek that has so far been largely unaffected by coal mine pollution and incorporates additional water quality measures.

Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher with the Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, said the changes to the Fording River extension proposal are largely positive.

“But at the end of the day, the mine hasn’t changed sufficiently for us to not oppose it at all,” he said. “They’re still knocking down an entire mountain.”

Ktunaxa Nation Council and Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it, one of four Ktunaxa First Nations in B.C., were involved in revisions to the mine proposal, Chris Stannell, Elk Valley Resources communication manager, said. 

While Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle said the best case scenario would be for the mine expansion to be taken off the table, she supports moving the proposal into the next phase of the environmental assessment process.

“What are the other options? To end mining? It’s not going to happen. To make this someone else’s problem in a different area, different mountain?” she said in an interview. 

Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it will continue to be actively involved throughout the environmental assessment process, she said. “These are our lands and we’re here to protect them, we’re here to guide them.”

Gravelle said the nation understands there’s a need for resources, but development doesn’t have to happen the way it has in the past. “Roads are going to be built, schools are going to be built, mining’s going to happen — but does it have to be the way that it has been done historically? Absolutely not,” she said. “There’s a lot that can still be done in the environmental assessment process — there are still a lot of pieces that can be scaled back.”

New mining would destroy high-elevation grasslands, risk added water pollution woes

If approved as currently proposed, the Fording River extension would see new mountaintop-removal coal mining on Castle Mountain, just south of Elk Valley Resources’ existing Fording River Operations. The company says the expansion is necessary to maintain mine operations and sustain more than 1,500 jobs beyond the early 2030s to the early 2060s. 

Under the revised proposal, the extension project would have a total footprint of 4,326 hectares, more than 10 times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park. About 2,295 hectares are within already permitted areas and include existing waste rock storage areas, a coal processing plant and a tailings storage facility. The new mining area at Castle Mountain, which is not yet permitted, is just over 2,000 hectares. 

In another shift from the original proposal, Elk Valley Resources is now pitching a staged approach to the project. Phase one would involve construction from 2028 to 2031 with mine operations until 2053. Construction for phase two would begin in 2044, when phase one operations are set to decline, with phase two mining planned for 2046 to 2065.

A spokesperson for the Environmental Assessment Office said the next opportunity for public comment will be after the agency decides whether the project is ready to proceed through the environmental assessment process. Wiebe has urged the government to hold a second public comment period before that decision is made, noting the project has changed since consultations in 2023. 

If the project does proceed, the next phase is process planning, during which the assessment office will engage with First Nations, stakeholders, experts and the public to determine how the assessment will be conducted and how provincial and First Nation processes and decision-making will align.

The Elk Valley has been heavily impacted by historic coal mining dating back 130 years, as well as extensive logging, a highway and rail corridor and the development of several communities. The Fording River extension would add to existing impacts. It would mean losing more high-elevation grasslands in the area, which offer important wintering grounds for bighorn sheep and forage for elk and deer, for instance. “This is irreplaceable habitat,” Wiebe said.

The massive piles of waste rock left over from the mining process, meanwhile, have been a source of water pollution for as long as coal has been mined from the Rocky Mountains of the Elk Valley. When the waste rock is exposed to rain and snow, naturally occurring minerals like calcite and selenium seep into the water, eventually flowing into nearby creeks and rivers. 

While all living things need some amount of selenium, too much of it can be toxic. In fish, for instance, too much selenium can cause deformities and reproductive failure. Calcite, meanwhile, can solidify the loose gravel on the stream bed that fish rely on to create protective nests for their eggs.

Teck has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment to reduce water pollution from its mines and Glencore committed to continue ramping up treatment capacity when it took the mines over. Treatment facilities currently have the capacity to treat 77.5 million litres of water per day. According to the company, water treatment facilities are removing between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium from treated water. However, the facilities are not able to treat all contaminated water that flows downstream.

“[Elk Valley Resources] has made significant progress implementing the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan,” Stannell said in an emailed statement. “Selenium concentrations have stabilized and are now reducing downstream of treatment.” 

Three more water treatment projects now under construction are expected to increase water treatment capacity by another 50 million litres per day by 2027, according to the company’s website.  

Selenium levels downstream of the Elk Valley coal mines remain well above B.C.’s guideline of two parts per billion, which is meant to protect aquatic life. But the company is not required to get selenium levels this low in either the Fording or Elk rivers. The B.C. government set selenium targets for the Fording River at 57 parts per billion closer to the mines and 40 parts per billion farther downstream. In the Elk River, the province set a target of 19 parts per billion.

“As a British Columbian, it’s kind of embarrassing, to be honest, that we’re entertaining this discussion,” Wiebe said. “We have an international water pollution issue going on and we’re talking about actively making it worse.”

Gravelle said the risks of added water pollution and the loss of high-elevation grasslands are major concerns for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it. But she also worries about what happens if the company were to walk away. “Who’s going to pay for that mess that is up there?” she asked. “We see in other areas around the country where there are abandoned mines and things like that — nobody does.”

Late last month, the province released an updated Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, which aims for progressive improvements to water quality downstream of the mines. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Parks said “the updated plan strengthens B.C.’s regulatory role and provides a clear framework for how decisions are made that affect water quality, ensuring the Ktunaxa First Nations are included.” 

It did not, however, strengthen selenium targets. “But it better prepares us to make these decisions going forward by providing guidance on the process for target review and amendment,” the spokesperson said.

Long-awaited international inquiry into Elk Valley coal mine pollution underway

Water pollution from the mines flows from the Elk River into Lake Koocanusa, a vast reservoir spanning the Canada-U.S. border, before coursing through Montana and Idaho in the Kootenai River. In both states there are long-standing concerns about the impact of the pollution on vulnerable fish species. 

After more than a decade of pressure from the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation, which includes the four First Nations in B.C., the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the federal governments in the U.S. and Canada agreed to involve the International Joint Commission. The commission was established under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to address intractable disputes over water between the two countries.

The commission convened a body of all affected governments within the region to develop an action plan to reduce the impacts of mine pollution on the watershed, as well as a two-year study board of experts and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers to better understand the pollution and its impact on people and other species. The study board’s interim report is due in September.

Meanwhile in Montana, the state is facing its own struggles over its selenium standard for Lake Koocanusa. 

Between 2015 and 2020, a joint B.C.-Montana working group studied and monitored selenium contamination in the reservoir, with the intention that the two jurisdictions would adopt a single standard for the lake. In 2020, Montana moved forward on its own implementing a more stringent standard of 0.8 parts per billion. Five years later, B.C. is still considering a new standard for Koocanusa — for now it remains at two parts per billion.

But, Lincoln County, the Montana county that surrounds Koocanusa, is once again challenging the state’s standard, outlining concerns that overly restrictive limits could affect local industry, though Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality said back in 2020 that the standard would have no adverse economic impacts in the state.

“It befuddles me, really. I mean there are no sources of selenium in that basin within Montana — it’s coming from Canada and in terms of the benefits that we derive from the Elk Valley operations, it’s slim to nil,” Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, an environmental advocacy group, said in an interview.

Johnson warned key Montana industries could be harmed by higher selenium, calling the challenge “a slap in the face to people that rely upon clean water to do their work.”

“We’re talking about outfitters and fishermen, which is really important business in Montana,” he said.

Johnson said he remains hopeful that the International Joint Commission process will be a good step towards addressing the pollution from the Elk Valley coal mines. 

But he said considering new mining at this stage is “just throwing gasoline on the fire.”

“It’s tough to say this right now because of the current state of political affairs in the United States, but it’s about being a good neighbour in terms of making sure that our water quality is protected.”

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The Gibraltar mine was only expected to operate for 12 years when it opened more than five decades ago in south-central British Columbia. Today, it’s the second-largest open-pit copper mine in Canada — and Taseko, the company that owns it, is aiming to expand it yet again.

Taseko now plans to continue mining for up to 20 more years, but the provincial government won’t require an environmental assessment.

Xatśūll First Nation asked for an assessment last summer, noting the mine expansion would add to the toll resource extraction has already taken in the nation’s territory in the Cariboo region.

The proposed expansion doesn’t automatically trigger the review under existing laws, but Environment Minister Tamara Davidson could have required an assessment anyway. 

Xatśūll Kukpi7 (Chief) Rhonda Phillips said she was disappointed but not surprised by the BC Environmental Assessment Office’s decision, announced last week.

“It’s not the first time the province has chosen not to designate an expansion at the Gibraltar mine as a reviewable project,” she told The Narwhal.

Phillips is worried about the risks the project poses to the Fraser River and the added impacts in a region already under pressure from mining, forestry and other resource development. 

“The environmental assessment is essential to ensure there’s transparency and accountability and a thorough evaluation of those risks,” she said. “Bypassing that is just undermining the government’s responsibility in ensuring that their environment is taken care of and that there’s true reconciliation happening at the table.”

Xatśūll isn’t alone in its concerns about incremental mine expansions proceeding without environmental reviews. Two years ago, Ktunaxa Nation Council raised similar concerns about the Greenhills metallurgical coal mine in southeast B.C., owned by Swiss mining giant Glencore. 

Under its previous owner, Teck Resources, the Greenhills mine expanded several times over the past 20 years without an environmental assessment. And now it’s poised to expand yet again, adding to longstanding concerns about contamination of downstream rivers. 

Gavin Smith, a staff lawyer with non-profit group West Coast Environmental Law, said projects with significant impacts are “slipping through the cracks” of B.C.’s environmental assessment process by proceeding in phases.

Provincial permitting process does not consider environmental impacts as fully: lawyer

Smith said companies may opt to pursue projects in phases for economic reasons or as an intentional strategy to avoid a robust and transparent environmental assessment.

The common refrain from the B.C. government is that permitting processes can address concerns about potential environmental impacts, Smith said. 

In a recent report about the Gibraltar mine expansion decision, Alex MacLennan, the head of the BC Environmental Assessment Office, said the decision aligns with a goal of “fostering economic sustainability and communities through continued employment,” adding the project’s environmental impacts could be considered through the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals’ permitting processes.

But there are important differences between the two types of reviews.

When a proposed project goes through an environmental assessment, information about the project and its potential impacts are available in a publicly accessible, searchable database, Smith pointed out. Accessing information about projects reviewed through the permitting process is more cumbersome, he said.

Environmental assessments are also more in-depth than permitting processes, with more robust review requirements for projects that could have significant impacts on the environment, communities and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Smith explained.

“We have an Environmental Assessment Act for a reason,” he said.

Sean Magee, Taseko’s vice president of corporate affairs, said the company is seeking standard permit amendments that typically do not require reviews under B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act. 

In an emailed statement to The Narwhal, Magee said the company supports and accepts the B.C. government’s decision that an environmental assessment is neither justified nor required,  noting the environmental assessment office has released a comprehensive summary of its decision.

“Gibraltar is a significant contributor to the economy and communities of the Cariboo-Chilcotin British Columbia and Canada,” Magee said. Citing figures from a recent economic impact study, he said the mine employs more than 700 workers and supports some 2,860 full-time jobs across the country by creating demand for products and services and through personal spending by employees.

Tim McEwan, the senior vice-president of corporate affairs for the Mining Association of BC, said in a statement to The Narwhal that B.C. has made significant changes to strengthen mining laws and regulations in recent years.

He said the industry is “committed to responsible resource development” and “meets some of the most rigorous global standards governing environmental assessment, operational permitting, enforcement and post-closure reclamation and monitoring.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals said officials consult First Nations and assess the potential impacts of projects on Indigenous Rights and their cumulative effects through the permitting process.

In an emailed response to questions, the spokesperson said there are opportunities for the public to comment through the permitting process and companies are typically required to post a public notification in the local newspaper and company website. Limited information is also available about proposed work on the ministry’s new regional mines engagement website, launched last summer.

Gibraltar mine expansion would prolong impacts on Xatśūll

In addition to copper, the Gibraltar mine also produces molybdenum, a metal added to steel to make it stronger. It sits between Quesnel, B.C., and Williams Lake, B.C., in the territory of Xatśūll First Nation and Esdilagh First Nation, which is part of Tŝilhqot’in Nation. The mine is about 45 kilometres west of the infamous Mount Polley mine, where a tailings dam failed in 2014, sending 25 million cubic metres of tainted water and debris into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake.

In a letter last summer to the B.C. ministers responsible for mining and the environment Phillips warned it would be many decades before the ecosystems in Xatśūll territory recover from the damage caused by the Mount Polley dam failure, if they’re able to recover at all.

She said the First Nation is “highly concerned with allowing further mining activity to proceed in its territory without appropriately stringent levels of scrutiny to assess and address impacts.”

The Gibraltar mine, which opened years before B.C. enacted its first environmental assessment laws — and without Xatśūll First Nation’s consent —  has never undergone a comprehensive environmental review. But for more than 50 years, it has impacted Xatśūll’s rights to hunt, fish and trap, Phillips said in the letter.

Taseko has not yet submitted applications to amend its permits under the Mines Act and Environmental Management Act, the mining ministry spokesperson said.

But reports submitted to the environmental assessment office show the company plans to extend mining in two phases. The first phase, until 2036, would see additional mining contained largely within the existing mine permit area and involve raising the height of tailings dams, according to a report by the BC Environmental Assessment Office. The second phase would see mining continue for an additional eight years.

“This will greatly prolong the current and existing impacts of the mine on Xatśūll’s Aboriginal title, rights, culture and way of life,” Phillips wrote.

Xatśūll asked the assessment office to require an environmental assessment for both expansion phases.

But the office only considered whether to require an environmental assessment for the first phase, noting, as far as it understands, “Gibraltar’s contemplation of any phase 2 activities is conceptual and forward looking.” In a subsequent letter,  Xatśūll First Nation described the decision as a “critical scoping error.” 

Phillips told The Narwhal, “The lack of meaningful consultation in this process is troubling.”

“There’s risks posed to our lands, our waters and our way of life, it just can’t be overlooked anymore,” she said. “The expansion and any other projects that are happening within our territory should undergo a comprehensive environmental assessment to ensure that these impacts are fully understood and addressed.”

“Our voices are not being heard, we’re being overlooked,” she said. “It’s like drive-by consultation.”

“We’re not going to allow that to keep happening.”

Elk Valley coal mine expanded by 52 per cent after environmental assessment

There are concerns about the environmental oversight of incremental mine expansions elsewhere in the province as well.

The Greenhills mine opened in 1981, before B.C. had an environmental assessment law. The mine, now majority-owned by Glencore and operated by Elk Valley Resources, went through an early iteration of a provincial environmental assessment in the 1990s when a major expansion was proposed. Since then, the B.C. government has approved several more expansions through its mine permitting process.

In early 2023, Teck, the mine’s previous owner, notified the assessment office of plans to expand the Greenhills mine again, extending the mine’s life by one year, from 2027 to 2028. The proposal, which Teck called Cougar Phase 7-2, involved extending the existing mine pit by 54.5 hectares and the mine’s permitted boundary by 18.3 hectares. Teck said that would allow it to mine an additional 6.4 million bank cubic metres — a volume measured before it’s extracted from the earth — of raw coal, according to a report by the assessment office. The additional mining was also expected to generate 82.3 million bank cubic metres of waste rock.

The assessment office agreed with Teck that the proposed expansion didn’t meet the threshold for an environmental assessment.

By then, the Greenhills mine had grown 52 per cent in less than 20 years, from 2,669 hectares in 2001 to 4,053 hectares in 2023, Ktunaxa Nation Council noted, according to the government report.

Ktunaxa Nation Council argued those past expansions — considered together — would have exceeded current thresholds for an environmental assessment.

The council also noted Teck was likely planning future expansions of the Greenhills mine and suggested those plans should be considered by the assessment office as it weighed whether the company’s latest proposal would require an assessment.

While the office acknowledged Ktunaxa Nation Council’s concerns about cumulative effects, it said it viewed further expansion of the mine as “speculative,” given the limited information Teck provided regarding future proposed work.

Meanwhile, in late December 2022, Teck produced a technical report about the Greenhills coal mine saying coal reserves would support mine life until 2059. Teck’s report noted four more expansion phases were planned, saying it would require permits for them by 2025, 2028, 2031 and 2036 respectively.

Current system allows companies to ‘nickel and dime’ their way to bigger mines, mine researcher warns

Simon Wiebe, a mining policy and impacts researcher for the Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, said it’s “very common” for mines to get bigger over time. But he warned that by specifying the triggers for an automatic environmental assessment, the B.C. government has given companies a roadmap to avoid a review by splitting projects up.

“They know exactly what they’re doing and the government knows exactly what they’re doing, it’s just the sort of dance that they do,” he said in an interview.

“It would be very positive if we were able to take a step back from all these small expansions and take a look at the big picture and see what are these impacts going to be —  cumulative impacts over the lifetime of the mine.” 

“Currently, we’re getting these little permits here and here, there and there and you eventually nickel and dime your way up to an enormous mine.”

Last year, Elk Valley Resources applied for a permit amendment to proceed with the first of its next four phases for the Greenhills mine: Cougar Phase 5. The application is currently under review.

The expansion is 98 per cent contained in an already disturbed area of the mine and would involve mining deeper into a previously mined pit, according to the project application. 

One of the key environmental concerns in the Elk Valley involves the waste rock leftover after coal has been extracted. When the piles of waste rock are exposed to rain and air, contaminants like selenium leach into the water, eventually finding their way into local streams and rivers. While selenium is necessary for life in tiny amounts, too much of it can be toxic to fish and other aquatic life. 

“We’re in a situation where the more waste rock that is produced directly leads to more selenium in the water,” Wiebe said.

Teck invested $1.4 billion in water treatment and Glencore has committed to building new facilities to address the contamination, but selenium levels in the rivers downstream of the Elk Valley coal mines remain higher than the level the B.C. government recommends to protect aquatic life. 

In a statement to The Narwhal, Chris Stannell, Elk Valley Resources’s communications manager, said the Cougar Phase 5 project incorporates additional measures to manage water quality, including moving waste rock out of the upper Fording River watershed.

Stannell said the next two mine expansion phases — Cougar Phases 8 and 9 — would undergo an environmental assessment process to amend the assessment certificate issued to the mine in the 1990s.

“[Elk Valley Resources] is committed to responsible resource development which includes adhering to robust regulatory requirements to protect health, safety and the environment,” he said.

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The leader of one of four Ktunaxa First Nations in B.C. says she’s lost confidence in ongoing discussions between the nations and the federal and provincial governments over land management and potential conservation measures in the Elk and Flathead valleys.

“It boils down to trust,” Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle said in an interview. “We definitely do not have that sense of trust right now with how this process has broken down.”  

yakut-ak-nu-klee-it

Recent discussions have centred on two parcels of land known as the Dominion coal blocks, which together cover 200 square kilometres in the Elk and Flathead valleys in Ktunaxa Nation territory in southeast B.C. The Flathead Valley, in particular, is an area where Gravelle wants to see Indigenous-led conservation. 

“Our continued goal that we’ve been working on for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it is to have an Indigenous conserved, protected area all throughout so that we can manage those lands according to our ʔAknumuȼtiⱡiⱡ, which is our natural law and our covenants that we uphold,” she said.  

The Elk and Flathead watersheds are a vital link between the U.S. and Banff National Park for grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx and other animals. The area has been called “the most important wildlife corridor in all of North America,” according to a 2021 report for Parks Canada on conservation options for the Elk and Flathead valleys.  

The smaller of the two coal blocks, known as parcel 73, is a 20-square-kilometre block in the Elk Valley, northeast of Fernie, B.C. To the south is parcel 82, which is much larger and includes the headwaters of the Flathead River, a cool, gravel-bottom river that flows south into Montana and supports bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout and numerous other species.

“For us in Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi‘it First Nation, the Flathead is a part of our traditional territory, our homelands,” Gravelle said. “It contributes to who we are as ʔakanuxunik’, part of the Ktunaxa speaking peoples.”

ah-can-nah-hoon-ick

The Flathead Valley provides food, water and medicines, Gravelle said, and protecting those lands would ensure future generations have what they need to survive.

But talks over the future of the Dominion coal blocks have hit a stumbling block.

Gravelle said a combination of factors have led to a breakdown in trust. The biggest issue was when discussions initially aimed at finalizing a transfer agreement for the two parcels of land were pulled back to focus on reaching a memorandum of understanding instead, she said.

“We know how valuable [memorandums of understanding] are,” she said. “They’re only as good as a piece of paper is in the wind.”

“Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it has continued to show up and put our best foot forward and get as many of our people working on this, doing the work, getting the input and and then for it to just be halted is just a blow,” she said.

Yet Gravelle said the First Nation isn’t giving up. Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it is committed to the negotiation process, she said, adding ultimately the nation is still hoping to see the Dominion coal blocks transferred to the four Ktunaxa First Nations and managed under a Ktunaxa-developed conservation plan.

She said the federal and provincial governments must also come to the table in a way that respects the government-to-government relationship and commits to seeing the land returned to Ktunaxa First Nations.

In a statement to The Narwhal, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said the provincial government remains committed to the discussions.

“We remain focused on engaging and working with the Ktunaxa First Nations and Canada to determine the best way forward for the [Dominion coal blocks],” the spokesperson said, adding the federal government is in the process of drafting a memorandum of understanding for consideration based on recent discussions. 

Natural Resources Canada did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment before publication.

Extensive coal mining, logging has lasting consequences for Elk Valley 

Oil and gas extraction and mining have been banned in the B.C. portion of the Flathead Valley since the provincial government passed the Flathead Watershed Area Conservation Act in 2010. But the legislation does not prohibit logging and it only applies to a portion of parcel 82 of the Dominion coal blocks.

The neighbouring Elk Valley, in contrast, has been heavily impacted by development. Significant coal mining has contaminated creeks and rivers and destroyed sensitive high-elevation grasslands. There’s also been extensive clearcut logging in the Elk Valley, which is home to Fernie and other communities, along with a major highway where vehicle collisions with grizzly bears and other wildlife are common.

Gravelle said provincial and federal governments have long ignored the lasting consequences of extensive mining in the Elk Valley that were effectively sanctioned through a lack of regulations.

“They didn’t have consultation, let alone free, prior, informed consent from any First Nations groups and so now we are where we are today with a very disturbed land base,” she said.

She now fears the Flathead Valley and its tributaries could suffer a similar fate if decision-making processes aren’t transformed. 

“When it comes to our land, that’s within each and every one of our First Nations people, our ʔakanuxunik’ spirit, and you can’t chip away at that and expect us to be okay,” she said.

B.C. ministers asked feds to transfer coal blocks for conservation last spring

The federal government has owned the Dominion coal blocks, which are in unceded Ktunaxa Nation territory, since 1905 when it acquired the land from the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Last spring, four B.C. government ministers asked Ottawa to transfer control of the Dominion coal blocks in a letter to Natural Resources Canada Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. The ministers, who at the time were responsible for environment, Indigenous relations, lands and mining portfolios, said the coal blocks land would help the provincial government achieve its conservation goals.

B.C. has committed to conserving 30 per cent of land and waters in the province by 2030, in line with commitments the federal government made on the international stage.

“B.C.’s interest in holding the two parcels is to work with the recognized rights-holders to develop a plan for conservation and for ‘healing of the land,’ ” the B.C. ministers wrote in the letter.

According to a provincial briefing document The Narwhal obtained through a freedom of information request, the provincial government wanted the transfer of the Dominion coal blocks to take place in 2025 and hoped a memorandum of understanding with the federal government would be finalized before the October 2024 provincial election.

But a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship told The Narwhal earlier this month that discussions are still in early stages.

“The province is supporting Ottawa in dialogue with First Nations to define how more than 20,000 hectares of federal land can be used to the benefit of First Nations and all British Columbians, including conservation opportunities,” the spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions.

Carolyn Svonkin, Wilkinson’s director of issues management, said the federal government “is exploring all options for the future of the Dominion coal blocks, including conservation.”

She said Ottawa is engaging with First Nations and the province but no decisions have been made about the future of the two parcels.

Gravelle said both the provincial and federal governments need to recognize how integral First Nations leadership is to healing the land and ensuring a healthy, thriving environment.

“It is our inherent responsibility to protect those lands and to steward those lands,” she said.

Healing the land is paramount, she said. “It’s for everybody and everything.”

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The B.C. government has asked Ottawa to transfer control of 200 square kilometres of potentially coal-rich land in the province’s southeast, saying it would instead use the land to help achieve conservation goals. The request was laid out in a letter sent by four provincial ministers last spring and obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation.

The two parcels of land the B.C. government requested, known as the Dominion coal blocks for their potential coal reserves, are in the Elk and Flathead valleys in Ktunaxa Nation territory, in an area of the Rocky Mountains that has been called North America’s most important wildlife corridor for grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx and other animals.

The smaller parcel, known as 73, is a 20-square-kilometre block in the Elk Valley, northeast of Fernie, B.C. 

To the south is the second, much larger parcel, known as 82. The 180-square-kilometre parcel includes the headwaters of the Flathead River, a cool, gravel-bottom river that flows south into Montana and supports bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout and numerous other species. 

The federal government has owned the two blocks since 1905, when it acquired the land from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, according to a 2021 report for Parks Canada on conservation options for the Elk and Flathead valleys. In 2013, Ottawa considered selling the land, which could have opened the area up to mining for the first time in more than a century, according to a 2014 B.C. government infographic.

“B.C.’s interest in holding the two parcels is to work with the recognized rights-holders to develop a plan for conservation and for ‘healing of the land,’ ” B.C.’s former ministers of environment, Indigenous relations, lands and mining wrote in their letter to federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Canada Jonathan Wilkinson last June.

“Both parcels, but particularly parcel 82, are essential for realizing this critical habitat corridor and to achieving our conservation goals, including meeting our 30-by-30 commitments,” the letter says, referencing the provincial and federal goal to conserve 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030 to meet Canada’s global biodiversity commitments.

The provincial government wanted the land transfer to take place in 2025 and hoped a memorandum of understanding with the federal government would be finalized before the October 2024 provincial election, according to an internal government briefing document prepared in July for former B.C. environment minister George Heyman. The Narwhal received a redacted copy of the briefing document through the same freedom of information request. 

But a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said discussions are still in the early stages.

“The province is supporting Ottawa in dialogue with First Nations to define how more than 20,000 hectares of federal land can be used to the benefit of First Nations and all British Columbians, including conservation opportunities,” the spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions.

Carolyn Svonkin, Wilkinson’s director of issues management, said the federal government “is exploring all options for the future of the Dominion coal blocks, including conservation.”

She said Ottawa is engaging with First Nations and the province but no decisions have been made about the future of the two parcels.

Neither Ktunaxa Nation Council nor Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle of Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi‘it, one of the four Ktunaxa First Nations in B.C., were available to comment before publication time. 

Flathead Valley home to ‘globally significant’ biodiversity

John Bergenske, a strategic advisor with the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight, said he hopes to see the Dominion coal blocks transferred to Ktunaxa Nation as part of broader landscape planning for the Rocky Mountain wildlife corridor that includes the Elk and Flathead valleys.

“It’s extremely important that we see these kinds of conservation initiatives move forward in order to at least start to mitigate some of the enormous impacts that coal mining has had in the region,” he said.

Coal has been mined from the Rocky Mountains in the Elk Valley for more than a century and the industry remains foundational to the regional economy. It’s also had significant impacts on the environment through the destruction of high-elevation grasslands and the pollution of creeks and rivers. Extensive clearcut logging has also occurred in the Elk Valley, which is home to Fernie and other communities as well as a major highway notorious for vehicle collisions with grizzly bears and other wildlife. 

“The ongoing deterioration of the Elk Valley for wildlife connectivity and the decline of wildlife in the area has become a cause for alarm,” according to the 2021 Parks Canada report. “Warnings from 20 years [ago] have become a grim reality. It is now an urgent conservation problem,” the report says. 

Important high-elevation grasslands and other intact ecosystems supporting bighorn sheep, elk, mule deer, grizzly bears and numerous other species remain unprotected in the Elk Valley, the report notes.

The neighbouring Flathead Valley spans the Canada-U.S. border. “It is the only big valley in southern Canada that has no permanent dwellings, no highways and no railway and it abuts protected areas in Alberta and Montana,” the report says. “It has globally significant terrestrial and freshwater species diversity and abundance.” The Flathead River Valley abuts Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park and has long been viewed by some conservationists as the missing piece of that park. 

Oil and gas extraction and mining have been banned in B.C.’s Flathead Valley since the provincial government passed the Flathead Watershed Area Conservation Act in 2010. But the legislation does not prohibit logging and it only applies to a portion of parcel 82 of the Dominion coal blocks. The federal government transferred responsibility for forestry in the coal blocks to B.C. in 1978. 

The Elk and Flathead watersheds form a vital link between the U.S. and Banff National Park for grizzly bears and other wildlife. “It has been called the most important wildlife corridor in all of North America and is a key component of the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative,” the report says. The report notes the valleys are key to efforts to protect interconnected wildlife habitat between Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. and the Yukon.

In the face of climate change, conserving the Elk and Flathead valleys takes on even greater importance, the report says, noting the gravel bottom rivers that run north to south offer cooler habitat than other low-elevation areas. Protecting these areas would also preserve corridors for species to shift elevations.

Bergenske said conserving intact areas in the Dominion coal blocks and rehabilitating areas affected by forestry would be a significant step towards mitigating some of the broader impacts from development in the region.

“We certainly hope that the federal, provincial and Ktunaxa governments can come together with a plan that will lead to a future for healthy water, landscape and wildlife populations in the area,” he said.

But with a federal election possible as early as this spring, Bergenske said he worries conservation efforts in the Elk and Flathead valleys could, yet again, be upended.

“The story with the Dominion coal blocks, like several of the issues in the southeast right now, has been progress and then things are stymied,” he said. “Each time we see some changes in government, we seem to have to start all over again with the initiatives in order to obtain the levels of protection that the area needs desperately.”

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The Canada-U.S. treaty organization investigating transboundary water pollution from coal mines in southeast British Columbia offered new details Monday about its plan to study the contentious issue, and is now seeking public input.

For decades, contaminants, such as selenium, have seeped into local waterways from piles of leftover waste rock at coal mines in the Elk Valley. That pollution has moved downstream into the Elk and Kootenay rivers, which flow through Ktunaxa Nation territory in B.C., Montana and Idaho. While all living things need tiny amounts of selenium, too much of it can be toxic. In fish, even relatively small amounts of selenium have been shown to cause deformities and reproductive failure. This is a particular concern for at-risk fish populations such as westslope cutthroat trout, burbot and white sturgeon — all found downstream of the mines.

Last March, the Canada and U.S. governments referred the long-standing concerns about coal mine pollution to the International Joint Commission — more than a decade after Ktunaxa Nation first called for the commission to be involved. 

According to the new proposed plan, an expert panel will compile existing data on water quality and impacts to human and ecosystem health — and explore potential solutions to reduce the flow of pollution from the mines.

“The mines have been very negatively impacting all of us downstream in the Kootenai for decades,” Rich Janssen, head of the natural resources department and member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said in an interview.

“We need to see sound science,” he said. “We need to see the data for the mining impacts to fish, water and people and make every effort to heal the watershed.”

“The release of the draft plan of study is welcome — and a long-awaited step in the right direction,” Janssen said.

Simon Wiebe, a mining policy and impacts researcher for the Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, said in an interview, also welcomed the release of the proposed study plan.

“We now recognize that a) there is a problem, and b) something has to be done,” he said in an interview.

“Historically, we’ve allowed industry to set the tone on what should be done and how quickly it should be done,” he said. “So, we’re really in a historic time right now where we’re getting a third-party, independent review of these issues.”

Draft study plan to examine water pollution impacts on human, ecosystem health

The International Joint Commission was established under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to study and recommend solutions to intractable disputes related to transboundary waterways, and many have long seen it as the natural venue to address concerns about pollution from the Elk Valley mines. 

Last year, Canada and the U.S. asked the commission to convene all affected governments within the region to develop an action plan to reduce the impacts of mine pollution on the watershed. In September, the commission also established a study board of scientists and knowledge holders to better understand the pollution and its impact on people and other species.

The study board is now proposing to establish four technical working groups to help build a “common understanding” of the pollution in the Elk and Kootenay rivers. The board is requesting $4.9 million to fund the work. (The Narwhal did not receive clarification from the commission on whether the requested funding is in Canadian or U.S. dollars by publication time.)

• The water quality group will compile and analyze available pollution data to describe the current status and trends in water quality 
• The human health group will review existing health risk assessments and identify “known or suspected human-health hazards” from pollution in the watershed 
• The ecosystem group will examine how ecosystems on land and in the water are affected by water pollution and other stressors like clearcut logging, housing development and increasing recreation
• The mitigation group, meanwhile, will assess planned or measures in place to reduce water pollution in the watershed, look for potential solutions used elsewhere and opportunities to harmonize water quality standards across jurisdictions

All four technical groups will work with a council of Ktunaxa Nation knowledge holders.

“As part of the covenant made with the Creator, Ksanka ȼ Ktunaxa continue to be a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves — the four legged, the winged, the ones who crawl on the ground and swim in the waters — in upholding the responsibility given by the Creator to safeguard ʔa’kxam ̓ is q̓api qapsin [all living things] for future generations,” the draft study plan says.

The commission directed the study board to release an interim report on its progress in September 2025 and a final report, including recommendations related to its findings, in September 2026. 

An online information session will be held Feb. 11. The public has until Feb. 17 to comment on the draft study plan.

Conservation group hopeful study will identify solutions for mine contamination

In an interview, Wiebe described the draft study plan as “ambitious.”

“The major thing that stood out to me was the inclusion of mitigation strategies,” he said. “This is what I personally have been hoping for.”

“The [International Joint Commission] study will almost certainly do a great job of evaluating the data and seeing how much pollution there is, but at the end of the day, we know that there’s pollution in the watershed,” he said. “What we don’t know is: how can we do better at reducing that?”

Janssen said it’s particularly important that the study examine the impacts to fish and human health and the effectiveness of mitigations implemented so far.

“Who is going to be responsible for cleaning up over a century of leaching contamination once the coal is all mined out? Because that will happen,” he said.

Teck Resources, the Canadian mining company that owned the mines until last summer, has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment and other measures to address the pollution since the B.C. government ordered the company to develop a water quality plan in 2013. The mines are now operated by Elk Valley Resources, which is majority-owned by the Swiss mining giant Glencore.

To date, four water treatment facilities have capacity to treat 77.5 million litres of water per day, according to Chris Stannell, the communications manager for Elk Valley Resources.

Between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium is removed from treated water, he said in a statement to The Narwhal, adding the company expects to increase treatment capacity to 150 million litres per day by 2027.

“The plan is working, selenium concentrations have stabilized and are now reducing downstream of treatment,” he said.

But the company isn’t able to treat all of the impacted water flowing past its mines, particularly during the spring snow-melt, when stream flows are higher than other times of year.

Wiebe said the water treatment plants will have to be in operation for hundreds of years, pushing the costs of addressing pollution well into the future, adding that it’s “huge” that the study board will look at ways to mitigate that pollution.

Stannell said Elk Valley Resources “is reviewing the study plan and looks forward to participating in the consultation being conducted by the [commission].”

A spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Parks said the provincial government is also reviewing the draft study plan and would have more to say as the work moves forward.

“We are supportive and fully engaging in the process with the International Joint Committee,” the spokesperson said. “We see this as an opportunity to build upon existing work and enhance information sharing and transparency to the benefit of the region’s people and ecologically responsible resource development.”

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Teck Resources got a heads up more than a year ago that one of its southeast B.C. coal mines was under investigation for allegedly violating Canada’s Fisheries Act.

The company knew charges could be coming.

But it wasn’t until July 10, the day before Teck closed a deal to sell its Elk Valley coal mines, that Environment and Climate Change Canada laid charges against the company for polluting two fish-bearing waterways in the East Kootenay region of B.C.

The federal department filed five Fisheries Act charges against the company’s coal subsidiary over pollution from the Line Creek Operations. Line Creek is one of four active coal mines now majority owned by Swiss mining giant Glencore and operated under a new name: Elk Valley Resources.

The charges come more than three years after Teck pleaded guilty to similar charges over pollution from its Greenhills and Fording River mines. In that case, the company was ordered to pay $60 million in penalties — the largest fine ever issued for Fisheries Act violations — for releasing contaminants into fish habitat.

“Everytime something happens, we the public, the province and even those of us in this community get assurances that … ‘We’ve got a handle on this’ — and they don’t,” Randal Macnair, Elk Valley conservation coordinator with the non-profit group Wildsight, said in an interview. 

“We don’t take any joy in Teck polluting our rivers,” he said. “When is this going to end?”

Here’s what you need to know about the latest Fisheries Act charges.

What exactly are the new charges against Teck Resources’ former coal mining business?

The latest charges allege Teck Coal violated section 36, subsection three of the Fisheries Act. What does that mean, exactly? Well, Environment and Climate Change Canada alleges the company released — or allowed the release of — what’s known as a “deleterious” substance (more on that in a minute) into Dry Creek and the Fording River between January 2018 and September 2023.

Dry Creek runs through part of the Line Creek Operations before flowing into the Fording River, which is itself a tributary of the Elk River.

What’s a “deleterious” substance, you ask? It’s any substance, such as oil or pesticides, that when added to water can degrade water quality to the point of harming fish, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

One charge laid against Teck Coal relates to leftover waste rock from the coal mines, according to information filed with the provincial court in Cranbrook, B.C. The other four charges reference “coal mine waste rock leachate” — contaminants that drain from waste rock piles exposed to air, rain and snowmelt.

In response to a request for comment, Doug Brown, Teck’s vice-president of corporate affairs, directed The Narwhal to Glencore and Elk Valley Resources, which assumed responsibility for the coal mines on July 11.

Though the charges name Teck Coal, it’s Elk Valley Resources that will shoulder the liability, according to Charles Watenphul, a spokesperson for Glencore, which newly owns a 77 per cent interest in Elk Valley Resources. 

“These charges were laid against the Elk Valley Resources business, which will be liable for any penalties payable,” Watenphul said in a statement to The Narwhal. 

“We will not comment further on ongoing legal matters,” Watenphul said.

Asked whether the charges may be amended to name Glencore or Elk Valley Resources, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said in an emailed statement “the charged party on the information is Teck Coal and at this time the Crown is proceeding with those charges.”

Teck Coal is due to make a first appearance in B.C. provincial court in Fernie, B.C., on Aug. 15.  

What happened the first time Teck was charged under the Fisheries Act?

In the previous case Environment and Climate Change Canada brought against Teck, the company was also charged with violating section 36, subsection three of the Fisheries Act — the same as in this new case. That first case centred around selenium, an element that can be toxic for fish, and calcite, which can harden the loose, gravelly streambeds fish use to create protective nests for their eggs.

Teck pleaded guilty to two charges related to pollution from its Fording River and Greenhills operations over the course of 2012 in that case. Crown prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges related to releases of the same contaminants from those mines between 2013 and 2019.

At the time, the judge in the case said he was “satisfied the penalties imposed are a significant deterrent to Teck Coal.”

But Macnair, who is also a former mayor of Fernie, questions the impact of even a $60-million fine for a company earning billions of dollars from the mines.

“It’s obvious that Teck is taking this as a cost of doing business,” he told The Narwhal.

Fisheries Act violations can lead to fines or imprisonment. In the previous case against Teck, the company was fined $1 million and ordered to pay $29 million into the federal government’s environmental damages fund for each of the two charges. The fund supports projects — usually in the area where damages occurred — that have a positive impact on the natural environment in Canada. 

The mines, which produce metallurgical coal that is later burned to make steel, were big earners for Teck. In 2023 alone, the company made a gross profit of $4.03 billion from its coal business.

Teck is now shifting its focus to copper, which is required for the global transition to a low-carbon economy. And, after a failed attempt to spin off its coal business as a separate company and fending off a hostile takeover bid by Glencore last year, Teck agreed to sell.

What is the reaction to the charges against Teck Coal?

For years, water pollution from Teck’s coal mines has been a pressing concern for downstream communities throughout Ktunaxa territory, which spans parts of B.C., Montana and Idaho.

In a statement, Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair Kathryn Teneese said the council, which represents four Ktunaxa First Nations, was happy to see the new charges laid.

“We are pleased to see Canada upholding their legislation and commitments to the environment through these charges,” Teneese said, adding, “a lot of money was made during the time that the damages were occurring.”

“The Ktunaxa Nation has spent decades working to improve water quality and reduce pollution from Teck’s coal mining in the Elk and Kootenay River systems,” Teneese said.

In the previous case against Teck, the court recommended a portion of the $60-million penalty be directed to First Nations in the Kootenay region for fish conservation and restoration. 

If the new charges result in fines or penalties, Teneese said the nation is “hopeful that the funds will come back to ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa [Ktunaxa territory], to be used by Ktunaxa to repair at least some of the damage done and to help us uphold our stewardship responsibilities to ʔa·kxam̓is q̓api qapsin (all living things).”

Macnair called it “a bit demoralizing” to live in the Elk Valley “with an entity that has obviously expressed a lack of regard for the way business should be done and a lack of regard for our environment.”

“We want to give Teck the benefit of the doubt, we want them to be doing a good job and they demonstrate again and again and again that they aren’t meeting the basic operating requirements of a mine and it’s just very frustrating,” he said.

“It doesn’t make us feel any more comfortable having Glencore taking over,” he added.

How do the Elk Valley coal mines pollute the water?

Coal has been mined from the Rocky Mountains in southeast B.C. for more than a century and the mines are a major contributor to the regional economy. At the same time, there are long-standing concerns about the environmental harms the mines have wrought in Ktunaxa Nation territory.

To access the coal, Teck has systematically stripped away mountaintops in a process that produced massive amounts of leftover waste rock. When that waste rock was exposed to air, rain and snowmelt, selenium and other naturally occurring minerals leached into the water, flowing into nearby creeks and rivers.

Teck invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment and other measures to address the pollution. But selenium levels in the Fording and Elk rivers downstream of the mines remain many times higher than what the provincial government considers safe for aquatic life and there are widespread concerns about the risk the contamination poses for fish.

Though selenium is essential for life, too much can be toxic. When female fish transfer the contaminant through their eggs, their larvae may be born with deformities — curved spines, misshapen skulls, abnormal gills — or fail to hatch at all.

While Teck mostly met its selenium limits at monitoring sites downstream of mines over the past several years, the company repeatedly exceeded selenium limits during the late winter or early spring, according to data from January 2022 to March 2024 posted to the Elk Valley water quality hub. And even when selenium levels are within permitted limits, they remain many times higher than what the provincial government considers necessary to protect aquatic life.

In his statement to The Narwhal, Watenphul noted Elk Valley Resources has made progress in implementing the Elk Valley water quality plan, which Teck was ordered to develop just over a decade ago to address water pollution from its mines. He said Glencore will honour its commitment to continue investments in treatment and other measures to improve water quality.

What’s happening with the international inquiry into coal mining pollution?

For more than a decade, Ktunaxa Nation, which includes four First Nations in B.C., the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, pressed the federal governments in both Ottawa and Washington, D.C., to refer the issue to the International Joint Commission.

The commission was established under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to address intractable disputes over transboundary waters. It wasn’t until this year that the Canadian and United States governments asked the commission to launch an inquiry.

A governance body — made up of the Canadian and U.S.federal governments, Ktunaxa Nation, the B.C. government and the states of Montana and Idaho — has been established to guide the process. An expert study board will be established this fall and asked to develop a final report and recommendations by the fall of 2026.

While the inquiry process will take time, Macnair said he’s “quite optimistic.” A key reason for that optimism, he said, is that Ktunaxa Nation has “an influential seat at the table.”

But despite the assurances from Glencore, Macnair said he’s not feeling “terribly optimistic”  about the new owner of the mines.

“We’re hearing a lot of hopefulness about Glencore, but unfortunately [for] those of us who have had a chance to delve into their record, we’re not terribly optimistic,” he said.

In his statement to The Narwhal, Watenphul reiterated the commitments Glencore made to the federal government — which approved the coal business purchase under the Investment Canada Act — to continue to improve water quality downstream of the mines.

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Food harvested from British Columbia’s Elk Valley is higher in selenium than food from the grocery store or food harvested from regions not affected by Teck Resources’ coal mines, according to a human health risk assessment the mining company was required to undertake..

The assessment found eating an average of one meal a day of fish harvested from waters polluted by the company’s coal mines — an amount the Ktunaxa Nation considers to be sukiⱡ ʔiknaⱡa or eating good — could pose potential health risks due to selenium contamination.

Eating the same fish from the rivers and creeks downstream of Teck’s five coal mines in southeast B.C. less often, say a few times a month, poses negligible selenium risks, the study mandated by the B.C. government also indicates.

Selenium occurs naturally in rocks in the Elk Valley. When massive piles of waste rock leftover from mining are exposed to air, rain and snowmelt, the mineral leaches from the rock, contaminating local waterways.

While some amount of selenium is essential to life, too much of it over an extended period of time can cause a condition called selenosis, leading to hair and nail loss, skin lesions, tooth decay and impacts to the nervous system, the human health risk study explained. Those symptoms typically clear up when the selenium exposure is addressed, the report said.

“It’s rare but it can happen,” Silvina Mema, the deputy chief medical health officer with Interior Health, told The Narwhal. Sometimes people develop selenosis because they’ve taken too much selenium as a dietary supplement, she explained, or by a combination of supplements and dietary sources.

“Brazil nuts, for example, have a high content of selenium. So if people were eating a bunch of Brazil nuts every day and on top of that they were supplementing with vitamins, they could be putting themselves at risk of selenosis,” she said.

The human health risk assessment was prepared by the consulting firm Ramboll Americas Engineering Solutions in consultation with an expert working group, which included representatives from the B.C. Environment Ministry, Interior Health Authority, First Nations Health Authority and Ktunaxa Nation.

The 406-page study analyzed data on contaminants found in water and food harvested from the Elk Valley to assess the potential risks Teck’s coal mines pose to human health and determine if any changes are needed in water quality management. It focused on water pollution and did not consider risks unique to mine workers or from breathing in dust from the mines.

The report evaluated the potential for health risks under different exposure scenarios based on age and consumption rates. But it did not assess the incidence or prevalence of disease in the community. It also cautioned that human health risk assessment “is not an exact science and cannot be used to predict actual health risks in a community.” 

In a statement to The Narwhal, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy noted Teck Resources and the province are working with environmental professionals to implement a decade-old Elk Valley water quality plan. The plan, which the B.C. government ordered Teck to develop in 2013, aims to stabilize and reverse the trend of selenium pollution from the mines in the region’s water, among other goals. 

“The [human health risk assessment] shows we’re making progress on our goals and did not find any significant human health risks,” the spokesperson said, adding “we know more needs to be done.”

While a graph posted to the Elk Valley water quality hub shows Teck’s water treatment facilities are successfully removing selenium from the water they treat, over the course of a year most selenium pollution continues to flow downstream untreated. Federal water monitoring data shows concentrations of the mineral in the Elk River have continued to increase in recent years despite the treatment facilities.

Ktunaxa Nation Council was not available to comment on the assessment before publication time. 

The nation has repeatedly raised concerns about the toll the mines have taken.

“We know we can’t drink out of our rivers because of the mines. We can’t do activities, like fishing in the Elk River, that we did as children, because we know we can’t eat it. We can’t do those activities with our children and grandchildren,” Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle said in a 2022 Ktunaxa Nation Council submission to the province regarding a proposal for a new coal mine Teck proposed in the Elk Valley. “Our way of life, our cultural practices, our survival, is impacted on a daily basis.” 

Selenium risks higher than other water pollutants from Teck Resources mines, assessment finds

According to a B.C. government summary, the health risk assessment found “occasional drinking of surface water with elevated amounts of selenium or other mine-related substances is unlikely to pose a risk to human health.”

But the report warned surface water affected by the mines should not be used as a daily drinking water source and in particular should not be used to reconstitute baby formula to avoid exposure to nitrates, which can cause methemoglobinemia, also known as blue baby syndrome. Nitrates left over from blasting at Teck’s mines are the biggest source of the contaminant, which also occurs naturally in the Elk Valley according to the province’s water quality hub.

Overall, the assessment did not find elevated risks from mine contaminants in its analysis of groundwater wells, according to the provincial summary. But the risk assessment noted data wasn’t available for all area wells and recommended well owners get their water tested.

Teck Resources has been monitoring private and municipal drinking water wells since 2014. Selenium levels exceeding provincial drinking water guidelines have been detected in multiple wells.

Eating fish from mine-affected waters is one of the primary ways people may be exposed to selenium, according to the report. But risks vary based on a person’s body size and the amount of fish they eat.

The selenium risks were found to be negligible for average consumers, or people who eat about 15 meals a year of fish harvested from the study area, as well as for “upper percentile consumers” — people who eat between 60 and 64 fish meals a year, according to the assessment.

For “people fishing occasionally and consuming fish from the valley occasionally, the risk is not higher than fishing anywhere else,” Mema, of Interior Health, said. “I wouldn’t be too concerned about that.”

But people who eat fish from mine-affected waters at Ktunaxa Nation’s preferred rate, the level required for sukiⱡ ʔiknaⱡa, could face potential health risks due to selenium exposure, the study found.

Mema said the health risk assessment doesn’t mean that everyone who eats fish every day from rivers downstream of the mines are at increased risk from selenium because it depends where they fish and what type of fish they eat.

“Exposure from other types of foods like game, berries, rose hips, those would not result in elevated risk to health,” she said.

Fish from Koocanusa Reservoir, a large lake created by Montana’s Libby Dam that the Elk River flows into, pose negligible selenium risks even at Ktunaxa Nation’s preferred rate of fish consumption, according to the risk assessment. However, mercury may be a concern for people who eat 60 fish meals or more annually from the reservoir, according to the report. The risk assessment said mercury levels in the reservoir are not related to the coal mines and are comparable to other lakes in the region.

There is some uncertainty in the health risk assessment findings because fish samples were not necessarily collected from areas where people prefer to fish or of the species people prefer to eat. For instance, the study included longnose suckers from Goddard Marsh, directly downstream of the mines: while the report found the suckers had elevated selenium concentrations and should not be consumed, it also noted people don’t typically fish in Goddard Marsh.

The B.C. government directed Teck Resources to work with the human health working group to develop a program to address gaps identified in the risk assessment, including assessing the health risks of eating popular fish from common harvesting areas.

‘We don’t inherit the Earth, we’re supposed to be taking care of it’

Kevin Podrasky, the president of the East Kootenay Wildlife Association, who previously worked for Teck, said he wasn’t surprised by the risk assesment’s findings.

“Even the aquatic side, it wasn’t a deep surprise to me that there are potential risks,” Podrasky, whose association of hunters, fishers and conservationists is affiliated with the B.C. Wildlife Federation, said in an interview. Podrasky said the number of fish he eats from waterways downstream of Teck’s mines is low enough that he isn’t personally concerned about health risks.

The number of people fishing in the Elk Valley has grown significantly, he noted. “You can’t drive past Fernie without seeing a guide boat,” Podrasky said. “There’s a big industry now.”

Many people are out there for recreation and not necessarily to harvest food, he said, noting, “it’s not a catch-and-keep fishery for a lot of the river.”  

Podrasky said he would like water quality issues stemming from the mines to be addressed.

While the B.C. government recommends the 30-day average concentration for selenium in water should be two parts per billion to protect aquatic life, Teck is not required to meet this objective downstream of its mines. Instead, the province has set substantially higher limits for Teck’s mines. 

Teck mostly met its selenium limits at monitoring sites downstream of mines over the past several years, according to data from January 2022 to March 2024 posted to the Elk Valley water quality hub. At times, however, the company exceeded selenium limits during the late winter or early spring.  

For instance, in February and March this year, selenium concentrations in the Fording River, downstream of Teck’s Greenhills mine operation, exceeded the 57 parts per billion limit the B.C. government set for that stretch of river. Farther south, selenium concentrations in the Elk River, upstream of Grave Creek, also exceeded the 19 parts per billion limit established for the monitoring location.

According to the Elk Valley water quality hub, the poorest water quality is usually seen between January and March when water levels in rivers and creeks tend to be at their lowest and mine contaminants aren’t as diluted as they are later in the spring and summer when the rivers swell with melted snow from the mountains.  

The risk selenium poses to fish is one of the primary concerns about the contamination stemming from the mines. At high enough concentrations, the element can lead to deformities and reproductive failure. 

As Teck Resources plans to sell coal mines to Glencore, long-term water treatment questioned

In its summary of the human health risk assessment, the B.C. government says water treatment and other measures to improve water quality are expected to reduce risks to human health and aquatic life.

Teck has invested $1.4 billion in treatment and other water quality measures, company spokesperson Chris Stannell said in an emailed statement to The Narwhal. The company plans to invest an additional $150 million to $250 million by the end of this year.

Teck’s four water treatment facilities can treat a total of 77.5 million litres of water daily and the company plans to construct six more treatment facilities by 2027.

“We have made significant progress implementing the Elk Valley water quality plan, which is successfully improving water quality in the region,” Stannell said.

Despite these investments, Podrasky wonders who will run the water treatment facilities in the decades to come — especially if the planned sale of Teck coal mines to Swiss mining giant Glencore goes ahead.

In November, Glencore announced it had reached a deal to buy a majority share in Teck’s Elk Valley coal mines. While the deal needs federal approval, Glencore has said it intends to spin off its thermal coal mines in Australia, South Africa and Colombia into a separate company, and will include the Elk Valley steel-making coal mines if that deal goes through.

On July 4, the federal government  announced it had approved Glencore’s takeover of the Elk Valley coal mines, subject to a number of conditions. Those include requiring Glencore to be financially accountable until 2050 for environmental obligations under Canadian law — beyond reclamation obligations covered by an existing mining bond required by the B.C. government.

The deal is expected to close on July 11, according to a Teck press release.

Podrasky is clear he’s not opposed to resource development in the Elk Valley. “I made a very good living out of the coal mines and so do my family,” he said.

But he does worry about what the future holds. “You have to have very deep pockets to be managing these issues,” he said. He pointed to contaminated mine sites in northern B.C. “We can’t afford to let that happen down here.” 

And it’s not just the mines, but the combined impacts from extensive logging, increasing recreation — and what he calls mismanagement by the provincial government.

“I’m not afraid to say that I’ve shed many tears watching what it’s become now,” he said. “We don’t inherit the Earth, we’re supposed to be taking care of it for the next generation.”

Dust from Teck’s Elk Valley coal mines remains a ‘huge concern’

A key concern the human health risk assessment did not directly address is the risk of breathing in dust from the coal mines.

“A lot of us are deeply concerned about the particulate matter in the air,” Podrasky, from the East Kootenay Wildlife Association, said.

A recent study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found “vast quantities” of toxic contaminants called polycyclic aromatic compounds are blown downwind of the mines.

According to the study, Teck Resources is not required to report emissions of polycyclic aromatic compounds, but does report overall particulate matter emissions.

The study says annual particulate matter emissions increased more than ten fold between 2006 and 2021, rising from 11,618 to 164,339 tons.

In January, the B.C. government also directed Teck to undertake a scoping study to better understand exposure and health risks from mine dust in consultation with the human health working group.

“The recent research has clearly shown that airborne coal dust is an issue, not only near the mines, but downwind of it as well,” Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher with the conservation group Wildsight, said. “It’s definitely a huge concern for locals,” he said. “But it’s not something to be ignored, even if you live in the neighbouring province.”

The final human health risk assessment report was submitted to the provincial government in October 2023, accepted in January 2024 and quietly posted to B.C.’s Elk Valley water quality hub website in February.

At the time, the provincial government made several recommendations, including to “communicate results of the [risk assessment] and next steps publicly using accessible language.”

Although a plain language summary of the risk assessment was posted on the water quality hub, it doesn’t appear the provincial government, Interior Health or Teck issued a press release to notify the media or the public.

“It’s publicly available, but they really aren’t advertising it,” Wiebe told The Narwhal.

Mema acknowledged the need for a risk assessment communication plan. “We are working towards that,” she said.

The Narwhal asked for an interview with Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman but was turned down.

When asked about the lack of public communication around the health risk assessment, a spokesperson for the Environment Ministry said “public communication about human health risks are led by experts at the health authority.” The spokesperson added the ministry would continue to work with the Ktunaxa Nation Council to support communication with Ktunaxa citizens.

Updated on July 4, 2024, at 5:29 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with news on the federal government expected to approve the sale of Teck’s coal operations to Glencore.

Updated on July 5, 2024, at 8:27 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to note the federal government has approved Glencore’s takeover of Teck’s Elk Valley coal mines. 

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