Seven years after a tailings pond containing contaminated mining waste collapsed in interior B.C., sending 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into surrounding waterways, critics and an internal audit show the province is still falling short of having regulations that ensure the safety of the province’s mines. 

On Aug. 4, 2014, a four-square-kilometre pond holding copper and gold mining waste from the Mount Polley mine breached, spilling the toxic tailings into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake — sources of drinking water and spawning grounds for sockeye salmon. 

In the aftermath of this disaster, the provincial government promised to make changes to its regulatory framework for tailings storage facilities to prevent a repeat of the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse. 

However, the results of an internal audit, released this spring that assessed whether these changes were strong enough, found gaps, inconsistencies and ambiguity remain.  

The question of whether B.C.’s mining laws protect communities and waterways is especially relevant right now as the province faces the prospect of a new mining boom. 

The results of the latest annual British Columbia Mineral and Coal Exploration Survey found that, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploration spending increased by 28 per cent between 2019 and 2020. Currently, there are over 70 tailings storage facilities listed as either operating, closed, or undergoing maintenance in B.C.

The ministry of mines claims the mining industry is critical to economic recovery as a part of post-pandemic recovery. During a spring virtual ‘mining day’ at the B.C. legislature, the ministry also advertised that B.C.’s current regulations make the province a world leader in harvesting clean, responsibly sourced metals. 

“We have taken steps to strengthen health, safety and environmental compliance, to improve permitting and to advance reconciliation, distinguishing us as leaders in the growing global environmental, social and governance investment movement,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, in a mining day statement.

However the internal audit casts doubt on whether current regulations are enough to prevent another Mount Polley-like catastrophe, finding that the ministry is inconsistent in its approach to enforcing some safety code provisions and dealing with tailings storage facilities at mines that are no longer operating. 

The audit made seven recommendations to resolve these inconsistencies — recommendations that Ralston publicly committed to implementing in June, as a step toward creating a better regulatory framework for tailings facilities.

Geophysicist David Chambers has been researching the issue of tailings dam breaches for about a decade and became familiar with the Mount Polley disaster in B.C. as it was the first major failure of a mining dam in Canada. 

“I think both mining companies and regulators, while they have taken some necessary steps to try to solve that problem, I’m not sure that they’ve gone far enough to really make the changes that we need to make,” Chambers told The Narwhal.

Mining companies aren’t required to provide full up-front reclamation costs

Two years ago, the B.C. First Nations Energy and Mining Council issued a report that recommends the province require all mining companies to provide financial assurances to pay for possible future cleanup costs in case of a tailings dam breach, before they can go forward with their work. 

At the moment, B.C. relies on a phased system in which mining companies do not have to put up the full estimated clean-up cost up front and instead can rely in part on the value of the untapped commodities in the ground. 

The ministry of mines has not committed to adopting measures that would ask companies to provide up-front financial assurances for environmental damages. 

As of 2018, a report from B.C. ‘s Chief Inspector of Mines stated that while mining companies have contributed $1.6 billion in bonds to cover land reclamation costs, the total estimated costs of reclamation has risen to $2.8 billion. In the event that a mining company goes bankrupt and abandons operations, taxpayers are left to make up the difference. 

“I think British Columbia is probably the perfect candidate to lead the way if they really want to be the world leader in tailings dam regulation,” Chambers said, further explaining that there are two reasons why requiring up-front assurances would be a step in the right direction. 

First, there needs to be a guarantee that companies are on the line to pay for environmental remediation as well as compensation to surrounding residents and businesses in case of damages — something that taxpayers were on the hook for during the Mount Polley disaster — even if they go bankrupt or claim insolvency. 

Second, having to put up funds for cleaning a potential tailings dam breach gives companies a significant financial incentive to make sure those accidents do not happen in the first place. 

Chambers also argues that the province’s current regulations don’t do enough to make sure safety is the main consideration when looking at the design, construction, operation and closure of tailings dams in B.C.

“In a B.C. environment, where in a lot of areas you have high earthquake hazards, where you have high precipitation … upstream tailings dams don’t really make sense,” he said. “We need to look at this whole issue of wet closures.”

There are two main ways to store tailings from a mine: wet and dry. The wet method involves sealing a deposit of waste with water and is typically used with tailings facilities located in pits. The dry method involves covering tailings with solid material. 

The expert panel convened in 2015 to investigate the Mount Polley tailings facility breach called for a reduction in the use of the wet storage method. Despite this finding, the B.C. ministry of mines decided to take a “site by site” approach and, according to Chambers, have sided with a wet closure approach in every situation where the issue of tailings storage has come up.

“The reason it’s not being done is a cost consideration, because [the wet method] is the cheapest way to close things,” Chambers said.

The issue of wet tailings in B.C. recently sparked international concern when a company applied to increase its tailings pond capacity by 70 per cent at the Copper Mountain mine, which straddles the Similkameen River that flows south through the province before draining across the Canada-U.S. border into Washington State’s Okanogan River.  

The Copper Mountain mine’s tailings pond dam, at 155 metres high, is already four times taller than the Mount Polley mine tailings dam. Downstream residents in both B.C. and Washington State are concerned the enormous wet tailings impoundment, which would hold up to 420 million cubic metres of tailings should the increase be approved, is being considered for an expansion that may not undergo a formal environmental assessment.

By comparison, the Mount Polley tailings impoundment contained about 44 million cubic metres of tailings, and released about 17 million cubic meters of water and 8 million cubic meters of tailings in the 2014 spill.

The Mount Polley expert panel found that without updates to mining regulations, the province can expect two tailings dam collapses every 10 years. 

In 2016, the cost of cleaning up the province’s abandoned mining sites — left behind by owners and operators that “no longer exist” — was estimated to be around $508 million. This amount represents an increase of 83.4 per cent compared to 2014. 

For Chambers, the number one factor standing in the way of better regulations for tailing storage facilities is the amount of money they would require, both for mining companies and for regulators who would then be required to enforce the rules they put in place.

“[B.C.] just makes safety a consideration, not the primary consideration,” he said. “When you take safety and put that on an even par with financial considerations … money is going to win that battle every time, quite frankly, because that’s the way the system is set up.”

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It’s been five years since the Mount Polley tailings dam burst and spilled 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into critical salmon habitat in the Fraser River watershed, but B.C. hasn’t learned its lesson, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

If another mining accident happened today, B.C. taxpayers would still be at risk of paying the clean-up bill according to the report released by the First Nations Energy and Mining Council, which calls on the B.C. government to compel mining companies to provide funds for cleanup.

“The lack of financial assurance for mining disasters is a serious policy gap in British Columbia — one that increases the risk of another Mount Polley,” said report author and economist Jason Dion. “By implementing smart financial assurance requirements, B.C. can better protect the public while still ensuring a thriving mining sector in the province.”

The cost of cleaning up B.C.’s abandoned mine sites was pegged at more than $500 million in 2016.

Financial assurance is a system of ensuring funds are available to pay for a cleanup even if a company goes bankrupt. It screens out companies that can’t afford the risk of their own projects.

British Columbia currently relies on a phased system of financial assurance, in which companies do not have to put up the full estimated clean-up cost up front; companies can rely in part on the value of the untapped commodities in the ground, an approach that is vulnerable to commodity swings, company bankruptcies and technological innovations at competing mines elsewhere in the world, Dion says.

Two tailings dam failures expected each decade under current regulations

The expert panel that reviewed the cause of the Mount Polley mine disaster warned B.C. can expect two dam failures every 10 years unless mining laws are updated. Nearly five years later, no fines and no charges have been laid against the mine’s owner Imperial Metals, which is now on precarious financial ground. One economist has estimated that British Columbians are on the hook for a $40 million clean-up bill for the Mount Polley disaster.

“B.C. has a polluter-pay policy under its Environmental Management Act, but that’s not the reality on the ground,” said Allen Edzerza of the First Nations Energy and Mining Council.

“By accepting our recommendations, the government would not only ensure that polluters pay when there are disasters, it would also reduce the risk of another Mount Polley by giving mining companies a financial incentive to reduce risk in their operations.”

The recommendations would bring the mining sector into line with other heavy industrial sectors — pipelines, offshore oil and gas production, tanker traffic and nuclear power generation — which must provide financial security against the risk of disaster, in many cases up to $1 billion, according to the report.

A June report from the First Nations Energy and Mining Council found that British Columbia does not need to reinvent the wheel in terms of mining rules. It can emulate other jurisdictions such as Quebec and the United States.

A case in point: in 2013 Quebec tabled legislation requiring all new mines to provide a guarantee sufficient to cover the estimated costs of clean up. A mining operation today must provide a financial guarantee in three separate payments in the earliest stages of mine life: 50 percent of the total amount within 90 days of mining plan approval, with two payments of 25 percent each, made on the subsequent anniversaries of approval.

‘The power exists to do it today’

These changes could be made in B.C. with a stroke of the pen, says report author Dion, a researcher at Ottawa’s Ecofiscal Commission.

“The power exists to do it today,” he says of requiring any new B.C. mine to put up a full clean-up cost with cash or other secure financial instruments. “Under this scenario, only the mines that could afford to clean themselves up would go forward, from now on. This is definitely low-hanging fruit.”

This spring, the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources confirmed it was engaging industry and First Nations on legislative changes to the Mineral Tenure Act, specifically around changes to placer mining and mineral tenure rules. In late July, a spokesperson for the ministry confirmed that there are also plans to change B.C.’s reclamation security policy this year, although details and more specific timelines were not provided.

The Quebec policy shift, part of a wider body of reforms, is noteworthy because a big multinational mining company operating in Quebec today needs to put up full clean-up costs upfront, regardless of how much money it has in the bank. Meanwhile in B.C., mining giant Teck Resources has unsecured reclamation costs of $700 million for its mines.

Tulsequah Chief mine polluting for decades

Emulating the Quebec approach could eliminate the conditions that created the fiasco at northern B.C.’s Tulsequah Chief mine. In that instance, a large company developed the mine and later sold it off, only to be taken over by a succession of small players without the means to clean it up.

The Tulsequah Chief, which has been polluting a shared Alaska-B.C. transboundary salmon river for decades, has not only strained B.C.’s reputation and relationship with Alaska, but B.C. taxpayers are now on the hook to pay for clean-up.

Water pits filled with acid mine drainage at the Tulsequah Chief mine in northwestern B.C. The mine has been discharging waste into the transboundary salmon-bearing Taku River for 60 years. Photo: Chris Miller via CSM Photos

B.C. also gives its Chief Inspector of Mines, an unelected bureaucrat appointed by the ministry, a large amount of discretion in setting the terms of financial assurance, which appears to occur on an ad hoc, mine-by-mine basis without posted guidelines. The province did not facilitate The Narwhal’s request for an interview with Herman Henning, B.C.’s new Chief Inspector of Mines. Henning’s LinkedIn page as of July 24 showed his current occupation as a “self-employed mining consultant.”

Edzerza of the First Nations Energy and Mining Council cautions that more is necessary than simply insisting on full up-front reclamation costs. Mechanisms are also needed to ensure that estimated reclamation costs reflect the real clean-up cost — including when a mine expands beyond the originally permitted size.

‘No negative effect’ from Quebec’s strengthened reclamation policy

In Quebec, political will was required to make the policy changes. Government faced criticism from a wide range of industry-related groups in the lead-up to the changes, including warnings that tougher bonding rules would make the sector internationally uncompetitive.

But more than five years later, the sky has not fallen in Quebec.

“There has been no negative effect on investment attraction,” wrote Sylvain Carrier, a spokesman for Quebec’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, in an email to The Narwhal. “This policy change had a positive effect on public confidence, fostering social responsibility, and on mining investment.”

Carrier says that in 2014, the year after the changes were made, total mining investment in Quebec was $2.9 billion; last year, it was more than $3.1 billion.

“We can say with reasonable confidence that [the Quebec changes] haven’t led to the kind of major crash in mining sector investment that some might have predicted when the policy was put on the table,” says Dion. “It might mean less mining investment, but given the risks and costs of remediating some of these mines, if they cannot pay their own costs down the line, that might make sense.”

Dion cites the latest Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies, sent to 2,600 global mining professionals, which ranked Quebec fourth out of 83 mining jurisdictions in terms of “investment attractiveness.” British Columbia came in at number 18.

The Quebec Mining Association (Association Minière du Québec), one of the groups that cautioned about the changes in advance, declined comment for this story.

Should B.C. have a Superfund program?

One approach to paying the massive costs of future disasters, recommended in the June report from the First Nations Energy and Mining Council, is for British Columbia to create something akin to the U.S. federal government’s Superfund program.

Superfund is the name given to 1980 federal U.S./ legislation that empowers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up contaminated sites, forcing parties responsible to either perform cleanups or pay for government-led cleanup work.

At its outset, Superfund was funded by excise taxes on the petroleum and chemical industries, which makes it a useful model to consider for raising money to deal with future industrial disasters in B.C. Dion says it might be possible to “pool risk” across industrial sectors that are provincially regulated — for example, requiring mining and natural gas fracking companies to pay into a single disaster clean-up fund.

“We think the Superfund [approach] should be looked at closely as a model to replicate,” Edzerza said. “Because as we found out with Mount Polley, you’ve got to scramble to find funds to initially respond, and then to assess [damages] and do restoration work.”

Such an approach creates an industry-wide incentive — a sort of peer pressure — to ensure that all companies across a sector don’t let operations slip, because each company is indirectly on the hook for costs if a disaster occurs.

While this pooled risk approach is commonplace in many sectors, not a single province or territory in Canada currently uses such an approach to pay the cost of mining disasters.

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

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Generous bonuses for mine managers, rewarding them for cutting costs or increasing production, are linked to tailings dam failures, a new research paper has found.

The paper, published in the journal Resources Policy, pulled on a previous 2015 study that found a relationship between dam collapses and ramped up production or cost-cutting measures and carried the idea to the next level by looking at bonus schemes.

The new study, which documents four catastrophic collapses, including the failure of the Mount Polley tailings dam in B.C. in August 2014, found that all four companies had increased production or reduced operating costs prior to tailings dam failures.

Imperial Metals ramped up production before dam collapse

Imperial Metals, which owns the Mount Polley copper and gold mine, increased production by 23 per cent in the second quarter of the year over the previous financial quarter.

The first quarterly report for Imperial Metals in 2014 showed average daily production was 18,791 tonnes, which was lower than usual because of snowfall and mechanical issues, while the second quarterly report shows production increased by 23 per cent to 23,930 tonnes a day “significantly over the budgeted throughput rate.”

Imperial Metals, in common with many mining companies, did not disclose incentives offered to middle managers, but two companies out of the four case studies showed hefty bonus schemes for managers and the practice is believed to be widespread in the mining industry.

“We believe that the bonus system used to recompense middle management encourages managers to take more risks in order to generate short-term profits at the risk of serious long-term accidents,” said the paper, authored by Margaret Armstrong, Renato Petterd and Carlos Pettard.

“Year after year, managers keep taking risks with a low probability of occurrence, but with potentially catastrophic consequences. These risks are compounded by shortages of experienced staff, due to the cyclical nature of the industry and the retirement of the baby-boomer generation,” it says.

Armstrong, in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, said the 2015 study proved there was a statistical link between higher production and serious tailings dam failures.

“We therefore believe that this factor influenced the Mount Polley failures,” she said.

Tailings dam failures increasing

The number of tailings dam failures worldwide has doubled in the past 20 years from eight between 1999 and 2003, to 16 between 2014 and 2018. In addition to the push to reduce costs and increase production, increased amounts of waste from mines is also factoring into the increase in accidents, the study says.

“Advances in mining technology have made it possible to exploit lower grade deposits, despite decreasing commodity prices, which means disposing of more rejects and putting more pressure on tailings facilities,” the report says.

“Pressure on mines to increase production and cut costs may be the underlying causes of many of the tailings dam failures, even if the immediate causes are excessive rainfall, poor management practices or poorly understood geotechnical characteristics.”

The Mount Polley dam collapse sent 25 million litres of contaminated sludge and water into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for sockeye salmon.

Quesnel Lake was once considered one of the cleanest bodies of water in British Columbia. Now many of the residents fear drinking the water four years after the Mount Polley spill. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

However, the paper notes that the company has not paid for the full cost of the clean up. Also, the three-year deadline to lay charges under B.C. law has passed and the five-year window to lay charges under federal laws is almost up.

“The industry’s image has been tarnished by the tragic dam failures in Brazil and by companies such as Boliden and Imperial Metals that have avoided paying for part or all of their tailings dam accidents by discharging the responsibility on to those who designed, built and maintained their tailings dam facility,” the paper concludes.

“The mining industry as a whole must find ways to reduce the number of tailings dam failures and to prevent companies from opting out of their responsibilities to society, even if they have done it in a perfectly legal way, because the long-term future of the industry requires acceptance of mining by stakeholders and by society as a whole,” it says.

Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine tailings pond in northwest B.C. holds seven times more mining waste than the Mount Polley mine’s pond, which breached in 2014. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Researchers encourage shift to dry stack tailings

Recommendations by the researchers include changing to dry stack tailings or, at the least, reducing the quantity of water in the waste.

Armstrong told The Narwhal that scientific research has shown that the drier the waste coming out of the processing, the lower the risk of tailings dam failure.

“Another advantage of drier rejects is that they take up less space. This reduces their ecological footprint,” she said.

Governments should also impose much heavier fines and penalties, she said.

‘They try to cut costs to survive’

Ugo Lapointe of MiningWatch Canada agrees serious fines and penalties are needed to discourage financially unstable companies from taking risks with public and environmental safety and said the paper underlines that economic factors are often behind dam failures.

Companies sometimes crank production to take advantage of a high commodity bubble, which means they push the limit of the system and structures, but others are doing whatever they can to survive financially — and that means problems, Laspointe said.

“There are too many economically marginal mines that are being permitted. Mines that are struggling financially are the riskiest because they don’t have much buffer to operate so they try to cut costs to survive and cutting costs may mean cutting safety corners and then they also crank up production,” he said.

Previous studies have said that between 30 and 40 per cent of mines worldwide are economically marginal and should not be permitted, Lapointe said.

“We have been singing that tune for several years when we meet government and regulators and we are hoping it is starting to percolate in the right circles,” he said.

Ugo Lapointe of Mining Watch Canada. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Governments need to firm up legislation so they are able to deny permits on an economic basis, something which is currently a grey area, Lapointe said.

“Environmental assessment laws are not clear on financial risks being a risk for the environment, but they should be,” he said. 

‘Who is accountable?’

The researchers praised the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) guidelines, revised after the Mount Polley disaster, which, among other provisions, requires an engineer to verify the design and safety of tailings dams and for companies to include the effects of climate change when looking at designs and risk management.

“They should lead to improvements in tailings dam management, but they are just guidelines,” Armstrong said.

However, the guidelines may make other industries and governments look seriously at risks posed by mining operations.

“I think that insurance companies will put pressure on mining companies to respect the MAC guidelines if they want insurance,” Armstrong said.

The Mining Association of Canada guidelines are a good starting point, but fall short because they do not include specific technical criteria for the design and construction of dams and do not specify that a company’s economic risks should be assessed as part of the safety process, said Lapointe, whose organization has been pushing for sureties and bonds to cover the actual costs of reclamation or accidents.

“And the guidelines do not address consequences and sanctions. What happens if the dams fail and who is accountable?” he said, pointing out there are only 45 days remaining for the federal government to lay charges over the Mount Polley disaster.

Imperial Metals did not respond to requests for an interview.

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If a mining company cannot provide the full security to pay for clean-up and reclamation costs upfront, it should not be allowed to open a mine.

This is one of almost 70 recommendations released today in Victoria — part of a sweeping package of legal reforms launched by at least 30 mining advocacy and law organizations — designed to overhaul the way British Columbia regulates exploration, placer mining and metal/mineral mining.

“This will be the day that we begin to change B.C.’s outdated, archaic mining laws,” said Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria. “Too many of our laws find their origin in the 19th century.”

There are 1,100 closed mines across British Columbia, which Sandborn called “ecological ticking time bombs.”

B.C. Mining Law Reform: A Plan of Action for Change is the product of almost two years of research initiated by the Environmental Law Centre, with support from Indigenous advocates and groups like MiningWatch Canada.

British Columbians impacted by mining shared their stories from all corners of the province at a press conference launching the reform campaign.

“We were devastated on the morning of August 4, 2014,” said Christine McLean of the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake, referencing the Mount Polley mine disaster, which resulted in an estimated 25 billion litres of contaminated materials flowing into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake.

“Despair turned to anger for me and many of our friends and neighbours when the B.C. government allowed the mine to resume full operations, and in April 2017 issued a permit to build a pipeline to discharge mine waste water directly into the lake, allowing the ongoing pollution of Quesnel Lake.”

Christine McLean of the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake launched an appeal to challenge Mount Polley mine’s permit to discharge effluent into Quesnel Lake. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Cindy Charleyboy of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining spoke of the Tsilhqot’in’s fight for the past decade to stop the Taseko Mine, proposed for Teztan Biny, also known as Fish Lake.

“The lake is pristine and that water is needed there, untouched, so we can continue our Indigenous ways of life, our culture, language and spirituality uninterrupted so we can provide for our families,” Charleyboy said.

Cindy Charleyboy of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining said: “We are all here together in what is known as ‘Super, Natural BC.’ What are we going to do about it?” Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Sandborn said most British Columbians haven’t been aware of the urgent need to update B.C.’s mining laws. He pointed to an expert panel report on the Mount Polley mine disaster that predicted two tailings pond failures every 10 years and called on the province to phase out liquid tailings ponds.

“That hasn’t happened,” Sandborn said. “That’s why we’re here.”

The proposed law reforms target nine subject areas, including water protection, First Nations governance, mining tenure and the imperative to protect taxpayers from billions in mine clean-up costs.

Water is the common thread that runs through the reform package.

“We want to change the way mining is done in B.C., and in particular, the need to protect water,” said Ugo Lapointe of Ottawa-based MiningWatch Canada, which participated in drafting recommendations. “We say yes to mining, but not if it contaminates water.”

Good timing for changes?

The timing of the launch reflects three things: May is B.C. Mining Month, an annual industry celebration. It’s also the same month that McLean was supposed to get her hearing to challenge Mount Polley’s permit to discharge effluent into Quesnel Lake. And finally, B.C. has already started reviewing several mining-related laws.

The Mount Polley mine in central B.C., owned by Vancouver’s Imperial Metals, got permission in spring 2017 to discharge almost 60,000 cubic metres per day of tailings effluent into Quesnel lake. Christine McLean, who lives close to the lake, is currently trying to quash this permit and close this pipeline for good. On Wednesday, she released this underwater video.

“This is the opportune time to bring up the problems we have identified over the last few decades,” Sandborn said. He said many of the recommendations are designed to anticipate current government efforts to reform mining laws — including possible changes to the way mine securities are set for mining companies and the Mineral Tenure Act, which regulates placer and mineral rights.

“For years we had a government that wasn’t going to reform anything, they were totally in the thrall of the mining industry,” Sandborn said. “Now we have a government that will at least listen, so there’s a better opportunity [for change] today than a few years ago.”

Step one: change how mining claims are staked

B.C.’s mineral tenure laws, which determine where mining can occur, are a relic of our gold rush past and must change, Sandborn said. Today a prospector can go online without setting foot on the land and secure access to the sub-surface in most of the province, including beneath private property and First Nations traditional territories.

The dysfunction was apparent back in 2017, when Bev Sellars, a former chief of the Xat’sull First Nation at Soda Creek (and member of advocacy group First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining — located not far from the Mount Polley mine), grew so frustrated with the lack of placer mining regulation (e.g., mining streambeds for gold nuggets and dust) that she legally staked the subsurface rights to the Cranbrook area property of then-energy and mines minister Bill Bennett. (It took Sellars less than an hour and about $130 in fees from her desktop computer.)

The coalition is calling for government to consider a broad range of interests before issuing tenures to miners, including Indigenous free, prior and informed consent. Landowner consent should also be required for mining activities to commence on private property, and “no-go” areas need to be mandated to protect sensitive environments. The latter could prevent situations like Imperial Metals’ current exploration plans in the “doughnut hole,” located in the headwaters of the Canada-U.S. transboundary Skagit river.

Lapointe said this legal overhaul is long overdue.

“B.C. is the only province in Canada that has not yet revised its mineral tenure laws,” he said. Ontario now requires information sharing and consultation with First Nations, while Quebec requires written consent from landowners before exploration work can start.

Ugo Lapointe of Mining Watch Canada. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

A spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources confirmed the ministry has started “pre-engagement” with First Nations and industry on proposed changes to tenure laws, but would not confirm specific content or a timeline for changes.

Mount Polley’s long shadow

Many of the coalition recommendations address legal deficiencies exposed right before and after the Mount Polley mine disaster in 2014.

Most recently, the mine got permission in spring 2017 to discharge almost 60,000 cubic metres per day of tailings effluent into the lake. The company has been found out of compliance at least three times in 2018 alone, and has yet to pay a fine for this or the 2014 spill.

Sandborn said B.C. needs to finally act on the government’s expert panel recommendations made in the wake of the disaster. This includes an end of wet tailings storage for new mines in most cases, and a plan to safely retire at least 60 active mine tailings dams in B.C.

Perpetual pollution and the mother of all subsidies

A major thrust of the reform campaign is to ensure present and future generations are not on the hook for billions in mine clean-up costs.

“The taxpayers of B.C. are put in jeopardy by the archaic mining laws we have today,” Sandborn said, pointing out there are 123 tailings lakes in the province.

Today across B.C., 14 major mines rely on water treatment facilities to ensure water does not pollute the surrounding environment. The province estimates an additional 45 mines have moderate-to-high acid rock drainage/leaching potential — and predicts that 12 of these will require perpetual water treatment.

A cautionary tale is the long-closed Britannia mine, which cost taxpayers $46 million to control acid rock drainage, and now requires $3 million per year, every year (in perpetuity) to treat water.

The coalition is pushing for B.C. to stop permitting mines that have serious potential to require permanent water treatment — and adopt the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance standard for responsible mining water management standards, which sets good practices for mining and water protection at an industrial scale.

B.C. must also start regularly inspecting the closed and abandoned mines across the province, “to see how many of them are ticking timebombs,” Sandborn said.

He cites the example of the shuttered Jordan River mine, closed in 1974, which the government didn’t inspect for decades and, in that time, devastated the river’s salmon runs.

Ken Farquharson, a former Canadian commissioner of the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission, with a map of B.C.’s active and inactive mines from the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Farquharson points to Jordan River, where a mine has left a toxic legacy, but isn’t even marked on the B.C. government’s map of the province’s mines. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Paying for clean-up costs upfront

For the mines that do go forward, British Columbia needs to get 100 per cent of the full clean-up and closure/reclamation costs upfront, the report recommends.

This would prevent what MiningWatch Canada research coordinator Catherine Coumans has called the biggest subsidy that miners receive — the ability to walk away from a mine and have taxpayers (or the environment) pay the cost. MiningWatch estimates that old B.C. mine sites collectively account for more than $3 billion in “unfunded clean-up liabilities” for taxpayers.

“We need to ensure that taxpayers don’t pick up the tab for this,” Sandborn said. “The polluter must pay.”

B.C. must follow the lead of places like Alaska and many others, which require 100 per cent security provided upfront before a mine is permitted to operate. For B.C. mines already in operation, the report said, owners would have two years to come up with the full amount.

The lax nature of B.C. law has created a surreal situation for Canadian mining giant Teck. For an Alaskan mine, they have been forced to provide the full security for estimated reclamation costs ($560 million), yet the same company’s B.C. mines have unsecured reclamation costs of $700 million dollars.

The province is currently looking at updating how securities are set for new mines, but Sandborn (who has seen draft policy ideas) said the province is not planning on requiring 100 per cent of cleanup costs upfront.

What’s next?

After today’s event in Victoria, Lapointe and other campaign leaders plan to meet with the provincial government to discuss legal reform. And instead of one organization talking to government, they will present a united front of 30 different groups.

Moving forward, they hope to grow the coalition, reaching out to the public, municipalities and labour unions. “The idea moving forward is to broaden the circle of support for change,” Lapointe said.

The coalition also plans to continue its support of McLean and the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake in their efforts to get the pipe out of their lake.

McLean’s citizen-launched appeal to challenge Mount Polley’s discharge permit scheduled for May has now been delayed. This comes as Mount Polley prepares to close down and enter “care and maintenance” at the end of this month — eliminating precious hinterland jobs and raising a whole new set of uncertainties around how and when the mine will be cleaned up.

Imperial Metals has struggled financially, with experts warning the company may be on the brink of bankruptcy, and the company selling off a 70 per cent stake in its Red Chris Mine earlier this year to Australia’s Newcrest Mining.

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

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When it seemed clear the newly minted B.C. NDP government would not pursue charges against Imperial Metals, owner and operator of the Mount Polley mine, for a 2014 tailings pond collapse, one woman decided to take matters into her own hands.

Bev Sellars, former chief of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation — in whose territory the tailings pond released an estimated 25 million cubic metres of mining waste into Quesnel Lake — filed a private prosecution against Mount Polley on August 4, 2017, the final day charges could be laid.

Sellars made the case that Mount Polley has violated 15 rules under B.C.’s environmental and mining laws. She brought the private prosecution into play with the hope the province would take over the charges.

But this week B.C.’s Crown Prosecution Service quashed the case, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed.

Sellars said the news came as a shock.

“I don’t understand how they can say there wasn’t enough evidence,” Sellars said. “Anyone can go out there or look online and see there was a spill. And there were consequences of the spill.”

The tailings pond collapse caused a spill that lasted over 12 hours. The massive deposit of mine waste that entered Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water for residents of Likely, B.C., contained mercury, arsenic, selenium, copper and other heavy metals and remains settled on the lake’s floor to this day. Quesnel Lake is one of the deepest fjord lakes in the world and is home to a quarter of the province’s sockeye salmon population. The long-term effects of the spill and its contamination of fish habitat is still uncertain.

While the time limit has run out for criminal charges to be brought in B.C., federal charges under the Fisheries Act can still be laid for another 18 months.

However, Sellars is worried  federal charges won’t be laid.

“If there are no federal charges, then it’s just a free for all. Go out and pollute. So what if you have breaches of your tailings ponds? There’s nothing anyone can do,” she said.

“This is setting a dangerous precedent.”

ICYMI: Canada Has Second-Worst Mining Record in World: UN

“I think British Columbians and First Nations are rightly horrified that B.C. doesn’t appear to have the political tools or the political will to enforce consequences for the people who are responsible for this disaster.” https://t.co/UvPWhvrFeq

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 3, 2018

ICYMI: B.C. Quietly Grants Mount Polley Mine Permit to Pipe Mine Waste Directly Into Quesnel Lake

Kai Nagata, energy and democracy director for the democracy advocacy group Dogwood, said the quashed case presents an opportunity to reflect on B.C.’s ability to effectively regulate mines.

“I think British Columbians and First Nations are rightly horrified that B.C. doesn’t appear to have the political tools or the political will to enforce consequences for the people who are responsible for this disaster,” Nagata told DeSmog Canada.

“That the province would pass off the consequences to the feds reinforces that we don’t actually have the power in our own land to protect local people, freshwater and public health and safety.”

Nagata said there is a separate set of rules for international mining corporations that are well connected and operate in a regime that was designed for the early years of the Canadian colony.

B.C.’s mining laws were written nearly 160 years ago.

“I think it’s time to take a really close look at the rules that govern mines in B.C. and update them to a standard that reflects all the progress we’ve made in this province over the last 150 years.”

ICYMI: B.C.’s 150-Year-Old Mining Laws Are Absurdly Outdated. Guess Who Benefits From That?

Private prosecution cases are reviewed by the Crown counsel and “if our charge assessment standard is met we can assume conduct and prosecute as with any prosecution on behalf of the Crown,” Alisia Adams, spokesperson for the B.C. Prosecution Service, told DeSmog Canada.

If that standard is not met, charges are stayed, she said, adding the service doesn’t generally allow a private prosecution to proceed to trial, but they will take a case over should it proceed.

The B.C. Conservation Service Office is actively investigating the tailings pond collapse, but has missed the three-year deadline to press charges under both the B.C. Environmental Management Act and the B.C. Mines Act.

“I can say that we are aware that there is an ongoing investigation that’s continuing but because of that we can’t speak too much to the specifics of this investigation,” Adams said.

Patrick Canning, legal counsel for Sellars said he was frustrated and disappointed at the decision.

Canning said he supplied plenty of evidence to the Crown prosecutor, such as public investigations and reports filed after the incident, photographic evidence and video statements from several witnesses who were on Quesnel Lake the morning of the spill.

Canning added the Prosecution Service could have sought further evidence, as is common practice when criminal charges are brought from bodies like the RCMP.

The Ministry of Environment also could have directed the Conservation Service Office to share the findings of its ongoing investigation with the Crown prosecutor, he said.

When asked if the B.C. Ministry of Environment had done so, spokesperson David Karn indicated the results of that investigation will be forwarded to federal prosecutors.

“The Public Prosecution Service of Canada will consider all of the information gathered during the course of this investigation should charges be recommended under the Fisheries Act or other legislation,” Karn said in an e-mailed statement.

Ugo Lapointe, executive director of MiningWatch Canada, said B.C. is setting a troubling standard.

“Truly, we are not seeing a clear and strong signal from the Crown in B.C. that they want to enforce B.C. laws.”

ICYMI: British Columbians Saddled With $40 Million Clean-Up Bill as Imperial Metals Escapes Criminal Charges

Lapointe brought a federal private prosecution against Mount Polley and the B.C. government in late 2016. More than 41,000 individuals signed a petition in support of those charges.

The federal prosecution service stayed those charges in the spring of 2017, but can lay new charges or revive Lapointe’s charges until August 2019.

“Let’s contemplate for a moment that a disaster like Mount Polley with clear damage to B.C. water and B.C. forests, clear damage to fish habitat that has been documented in multiple reports — if it’s not possible to bring about charges under B.C. law, what does that tell us about B.C. law?”

Sellars said she is troubled that she does not have the opportunity to forge ahead with her private prosecution now that it’s clear the Crown will not take over her case.

“If they didn’t want to take it forward, that’s fine, but they should have allowed me to do so,” Sellars said.

ICYMI: “They’re Getting Away with It”: Locals Say No Blame Means No Compensation for Mount Polley Mine Spill Victims

Andrew Gage, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, said it’s problematic that B.C. does not allow citizens to carry forward private prosecutions.

“The absurdness of the ongoing B.C. investigation is they’ve had three years and still they couldn’t make the deadline [to press charges]. Yet, here you have someone who made that deadline and they quashed those charges.”

“The reason private prosecutions are sometimes viewed as a check and balance or safeguard to the legal system is because sometimes people don’t trust the government to do all the investigation and prosecution — to do their job, essentially,” Gage said.

“That certainly seems to be the case here.”

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Premier John Horgan said this week he’s anxiously awaiting a court decision on charges against Mount Polley mining corporation brought in a private prosecution by former Xat’sull chief Bev Sellars for violations of B.C.’s environmental laws — but B.C.’s role in that case is still unclear.

B.C.’s crown prosecution service is responsible for the final decision on whether and how B.C. will proceed with the case regarding the 2014 tailings pond collapse that released 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water.*

Sellars filed the case on August 4th, 2017 — the last day a case under provincial law could be brought against the company due to a three-year statute of limitations — as a means of holding open the legal door for government, which had only recently come under NDP power.

The courts are expected to make a decision on the fate of the private prosecution by the end of January.

“By filing a private prosecution on August 4th, I preserved the right to prosecute Mount Polley Mining Corporation for destroying the environment on which we all depend,” Sellars told DeSmog Canada in an e-mailed statement.

“I did so to uphold Canadian law, traditional law of the Xat’sull people, and for the sake of the next seven generations to come. I hope the province will do their part.”

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Horgan told DeSmog Canada the province is awaiting the court’s decision.

“I think all British Columbians were mortified that three years would pass with no consequences to the most horrific mine disaster in B.C. history,” the premier said. “I remain concerned and I am anxious to hear what the courts say,” he said, adding there is still time to press charges under federal laws.

The province still has the capacity to pursue charges under the Fisheries Act, which “have far greater penalties for non-compliance,” he said.

“What the province can and should do is fortify the regulatory framework which this industry is working within.” https://t.co/HsA8mRuRWx

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 17, 2018

“So this isn’t the end of justice or consequences for the failure,” he said.

Patrick Canning, counsel for Sellars, said the provincial Crown could still choose to take over the case or have the charges amended, adding the province’s ability to pursue provincial charges is still practically as open now as it was before the deadline of August 4, 2017.

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service is participating in an ongoing joint provincial-federal investigation into the Mount Polley disaster alongside the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada.

Canning said the B.C. Ministry of Environment could direct the findings of that investigation to the provincial Crown.

In an e-mailed statement to DeSmog Canada, B.C. Ministry of Environment spokesperson David Karn said, “While the statute of limitations for the Environmental Management Act may have passed, the investigation continues.”

“Be assured that both levels of government are committed to a thorough investigation within the timeframe of the federal statute of limitations.”

Karn suggested a “choice of charges would have to be made in any event,” suggesting government must select between provincial or federal laws.

Yet Canning said there is no legal basis for such a choice.

Sellars said as a grandmother her duty is to protect the environment for future generations.

“Indigenous people’s law stresses that you have to take care of the land for seven generations ahead,” she said.

“It’s not too late for the province to see that justice is done.”

Sonia Furstenau, environment critic for the BC Green party, told DeSmog Canada regardless of how the province chooses to treat violations of provincial or federal rules, government should take steps to rebuild public trust in B.C.’s regulatory regime.

“What the province can and should do is fortify the regulatory framework which this industry is working within.”

While one can acknowledge that mining plays an important role in B.C.,  given what we’ve seen with the Mount Polley mine, the situation in Shawnigan Lake and a similar issue now unfolding in Campbell River, it’s important to acknowledge a loss of public trust in industry and the government’s ability to regulate, Furstenau said.

“What I’d like to see from the premier is assurance that this industry can operate in a way we can trust, to demonstrate the environmental impacts won’t outweigh the benefits of the jobs and materials that are being produced in these mines.”

* This story has been updated to clarify that the decision on how to proceed with the Mount Polley case lies with B.C.’s Crown prosecution service.

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Fish and wildlife in Alaska’s major watersheds are threatened by six British Columbia mines close to the Alaska border, according to a new petition that asks U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to investigate the threat of acid-mine drainage, heavy metals pollution and the possibility of catastrophic dam failure originating in the Canadian province.

The formal petition, organized by a coalition of Alaskan tribal governments and conservation groups, calls for the International Joint Commission to investigate threats from B.C. mines that will continue to hang over the watersheds for centuries after their closure.

“It’s a very urgent issue and it’s important to a lot of people and their families,” Kenta Tsuda of Earthjustice, a signatory of the petition, told DeSmog Canada. “Their communities are at risk.”

B.C. experienced an explosion in mine growth under the former BC Liberal government, which expedited new project approvals under the 2011 jobs program.

The resource-rich corridor straddling the B.C.-Alaska border has been at the epicentre of new mine projects but also bears the legacy of B.C.’s old, abandoned mines, such as the Tulsequah Chief mine, which for decades has leaked acid mine drainage into a tributary of the salmon-rich Taku River.

Guy Archibald of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council pointed to the lack of enforcement of mining regulations by the B.C. government and the scathing report last year from B.C.’s auditor general that said the Ministry of Environment could not guarantee the safety of any of the mines.

ICYMI: Public Inquiry Formally Requested to Investigate B.C.’s Shoddy Mining Rules

“For 60 years the Tulsequah Chief has been leaking acid mine drainage into a very productive salmon watershed and the B.C. government is doing nothing about this,” Archibald said.

In addition to Tulsequah, the petition names Brucejack mine, which started production earlier this year, Red Chris, Schaft Creek, Galore Creek and Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM), which will be the largest open-pit gold and copper mine in North America.

Ten mines in various stages of development are situated along the B.C./Alaska border and within a transboundary watershed. Source: Salmon Beyond Borders

The new petition — and a previous petition submitted to the Department of the Interior — show that B.C. mines are diminishing the effectiveness of two treaties that protect Pacific salmon, steelhead trout, grizzly bears and woodland caribou, Tsuda said.

“We think the facts that we present in the petition do invoke their duty to investigate,” Tsuda told DeSmog Canada.

The Taku, Stikine and Unuk rivers flow across the Canada-U.S. border from headwaters in B.C.’s Coast Mountains and the wildlife and salmon sustain local communities and support hundreds of Alaskan workers and their families, he said.

The International Joint Commission is the body that administers the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, with a mandate to investigate disputes between the two countries.

A provision of the treaty states that “waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.”

The group’s petition has been submitted under what is known as the Pelly amendment to the Fishermen’s Protective Act that requires the U.S. Commerce and Interior Departments to investigate when other countries may be harming U.S. conservation treaties.

The amendment emphasizes the need, under international agreements, to protect habitat, but, if all the mines planned for the B.C. side of the border are developed, it will destroy fish habitat, Archibald predicted.

“We are willing to use every tool in the toolbox to enforce this — and the International Joint Commission looks pretty good versus a trade war,” he said.

Fred Olsen Jr., tribal president of the Organized Village of Kasaan and Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission chairman, said in an interview that awareness of threats posed by the B.C. mines is growing among Southeast Alaskans, along with frustration about the lack of action.

“Native people have relied on salmon and caribou from these watersheds for generations and communities continue to do so today. Commercial fishermen from Southeast Alaska also rely on these watersheds, catching tens of millions of dollars worth of salmon from these three river systems annually,” says the coalition news release.

The former provincial government promised the Tulsequah Chief would be cleaned up, but nothing happened and, on the federal front, hopes were high that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be sympathetic to environmental concerns, but that has been a disappointment, Olsen said.

“He has a Haida tattoo, but then look at the things he does. Everything you hear is either neutral or in favour of mining,” he said.

Eleven southeast Alaskan tribes have signed the petition and, over the next two months, other tribes will be asked to send letters of support, Olsen said.

ICYMI: Canada’s Environmental Fines are Tiny Compared to the U.S.

Enforcement of mining regulations in Canada needs to be tightened, according to Ugo Lapointe, Canada program coordinator for MiningWatch Canada, but there also needs to be a close look at the inadequate fines levied when there is a spill or an accident, he said.

On both sides of the border there is incredulity at the lack of charges after the Mount Polley disaster three years ago when the mine’s tailings dam failed, spewing millions of cubic metres of toxic waste and sludge into nearby waterways.

Lapointe also pointed to the recent $20,000 fine handed to Coalmont Energy Corp., a company which, in 2013, expelled 60,000 litres of mine waste into a tributary of the Tulameen River in the Okanagan-Similkameen region.

“$20,000 for dumping mining waste into a river is another pitiful environmental fine, showing the weakness of both B.C. and federal environmental laws and the enforcement regime. It is not setting a proper example for the industry as a whole,” Lapointe wrote in an e-mail.

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In a surprise eleventh-hour move, Indigenous activist and former Chief of the Xat’sull First Nation, Bev Sellars, has filed charges against the Mount Polley Mining Corporation, owned by Imperial Metals, for the mine disaster that saw 24 million cubic metres of mine waste released into Quesnel Lake on this day, three years ago.

The 15 charges, 10 under the B.C. Environmental Management Act and five under the B.C. Mines Act, were brought as part of a private prosecution against Mount Polley that can potentially be taken over by the new provincial government.

“We just couldn’t let it go,” Sellars said in a press release. “In my culture, we have a sacred responsibility not only to care for the land, waters, animals, and people living today, but also for the next seven generations to come.”

“I could not bear to witness B.C. simply stepping aside and giving up on its own responsibility to protect our shared environment and waters,” she stated.

Case lawyer, Patrick Canning, said a private prosecution of this nature is unusual.

“Private prosecutions in general are unusual,” Canning told DeSmog Canada, adding the last-minute nature of the charges was due, in part, to waiting on potential charges from the new B.C. government.

On Wednesday, B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman announced B.C. would not lay charges, but that an ongoing investigation could still lead to federal charges under the Fisheries Act for another two years.

The provincial government could foreseeably take over the charges, West Coast Environmental Law staff council, Andrew Gage, told DeSmog Canada.

“In theory what the province should do is examine the case and potentially take it over if it’s worth proceeding with,” he said.

The charges pertain to the dumping of contaminated mine waste into the environment and waterways, poor and unsafe operational practices and potential violations of permit conditions.

“We would hope the province would choose to intervene in the case,” Gage said.

The absence of charges against Mount Polley is shocking, he added.

“It doesn’t point to a failure of the incoming government but it does point to a failure of the government,” Gage said, adding he is glad to see a citizen like Sellars step in on behalf of British Columbians.

“People need to feel they can step in when government isn’t doing its job well. We’ll have to see if the government actually uses this to do the right thing.”

BREAKING: Last-minute Charges Laid Against #MountPolley in Private Prosecution https://t.co/D3pQgKRMgi #bcpoli @BCNDPCaucus @MiningWatch

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 5, 2017

Sellars said she hopes her private prosecution could act as a ‘door stopper’ for B.C., allowing the provincial Conservation Service Office to complete its investigation.

“While we are ready to go to full trial if necessary, we also believe it is ultimately the province’s job to enforce its own laws when they are violated,” Sellars said.

“If B.C. laws cannot be enforced when such a massive mining spill occurs, then we have a serious problem in B.C. and we must act to fix these laws.”

Gage said the rate of successful prosecution in environmental cases has dropped since the 1990s and early 2000s.

“I think that we need to have an expectation that laws will be enforced, even against, maybe especially against powerful players that can cause great environmental harm,” he said.

“The other things is there is a very practical consideration in bringing a prosecution and that is under the Environmental Management Act, the court can actually order alternative remedies, like remediation, compensation, restoration of fish habitat — all these practical considerations that the community around Quesnel Lake need desperately,” Gage said.

The case would also send a broader message to industry that environmental rules will be enforced in B.C., he said.

“I think it’s important when you’re dealing with an industry that has a temptation to cut corners…they need to know, given the consequences this industry can have, that they will be caught and there will be consequences for polluting when they don’t follow the law.”

Sellars’ private prosecution was brought with support from a number of organizations including MiningWatch Canada, West Coast Environmental Law’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund, the Wilderness Committee and the First Nation Women Advocating For Responsible Mining.

Image: Aerial view of the Mount Polley mine tailings pond on August 4, 2014. Photo: Cariboo Regional District

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This week marks the three-year anniversary of the Mount Polley mine disaster, which sent 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into Quesnel Lake, making it one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history.

It’ll be a stinging reminder of the tailings pond collapse for local residents, especially considering no charges have been laid against Imperial Metals, owner and operator of Mount Polley.

Come August 5 it will be too late for B.C. to lay charges, given a three-year statute of limitations — however federal charges can be laid for another two years.

But here’s the thing: under the federal Fisheries Act, Mount Polley can receive a maximum of $12 million in fines: $6 million for causing harm to fish and fish habitat and $6 million for dumping deleterious substances without a permit into fish bearing waters.

Compare that with the estimated $40 million in Mount Polley cleanup costs borne by B.C. taxpayers. And take into account that in 2016, Imperial Metals generated over $428 million in revenue and owns more than $1.5 billion in assets, according to the company’s annual report.

“Fines and sanctions are pitiful for environmental damages in Canada, and it’s part of the systemic and structural problem for ensuring greater environmental protection,” Ugo Lapointe, Canadian coordinator for MiningWatch, told DeSmog Canada.

“There’s little incentive for corporations to comply with environmental laws, or invest in more protective measures, if the consequences for failing to comply are cheaper.”

U.S. Environmental Fines Dwarf Canada’s

For examples of more meaningful environmental penalties, Canadians need look no further than the U.S.

In 2016 a Florida fertilizer manufacturer’s tailings pond drained millions of litres of wastewater into an underlying aquifer when a giant sinkhole appeared under the impoundment, tearing through the pond’s liner.  

The company was fined $2 billion USD for improper waste and chemical management (that’s 167 times the maximum fine Mount Polley could face under the Fisheries Act).

In 2014, Alpha Natural Resources was ordered to pay $27.5 million USD for thousands of environmental violations at the company’s 79 coal mines and 25 processing plants across the States. The company was also ordered by the EPA to pay $200 million in upgrades to its facilities to avoid future infractions.

Meantime back in Canada, the largest fine in Canadian history for an environmental infraction was for $7.5 million.

That penalty was handed out in 2014 to owners of the Bloom Lake mine in Quebec who pled guilty to 45 separate charges under the Fisheries Act.

The second largest fine in Canada, at $4.4 million, was just handed out to Prairie Mines in Alberta for the release of 67 million cubic metres of tailings waste into two creeks that feed into the Athabasca River. That spill was nearly 40,000 times smaller than the Mount Polley disaster. Of that total, $3.5 million was paid in federal penalties, with the additional $900,000 paid in provincial fines.

The third largest fine of $3.4 million was handed out to Teck Metals for three offences under the Fisheries Act after the company released effluent into B.C.’s Columbia River.

Mount Polley Disaster Didn’t Change the Way Mining is Done in B.C.

The absence of provincial fines or charges in the wake of the Mount Polley mine spill worries Nikki Skuce, director of Northern Confluence, an initiative that aims to improve land-use decisions in B.C. watersheds.

“It just seems incredible for what is called the largest environmental disaster in B.C.’s history, there are no fines, no charges, no penalties,” Skuce told DeSmog Canada.

“Our laws are that weak.”

Further increasing concern is the fact best practices, including recommendations made by the Independent Expert Panel on Mount Polley, haven’t consistently been applied in the approval of new mines along the B.C./Alaska border.

Ten new mines are approved or under construction along the B.C.-Alberta border, including Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine which was approved with a wet tailings pond impoundment similar in design to Mount Polley.

After the Mount Polley tailings spill, experts recommended the use of safer, but more costly, dry stack tailings.

“The Independent Expert Panel on Mount Polley concluded that we can expect two failures every decade if ‘business as usual continues,’ ” Skuce said, adding multiple wet tailings impoundments have been approved at mines of much greater scale than Mount Polley.

“With no full bonding requirements and potential fines low under B.C. and federal laws, companies have few incentives to invest in techniques like dry stacking that lower reclamation costs and reduce risk of spills,” Skuce said.

“Why use best practices and best available technology if you may never be held accountable if disaster strikes?”

Image: Mount Polley mine disaster. Photo: Cariboo Regional District via Youtube

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B.C.’s new Minister of Environment, George Heyman, says he identifies with the many British Columbians eager for the outcome of the single ongoing investigation into the Mount Polley mine disaster that sent 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into Quesnel Lake on August 4, 2014.

“I have spoken with the Parliamentary Secretary to the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change. We are in agreement that British Columbians deserve a rigorous and independent investigation to determine exactly what went wrong and to ensure any person or company that broke the law is held responsible,” Heyman said in a press statement released Wednesday, two days before the provincial statute of limitations for Mount Polley expires.

As B.C. approaches the three-year anniversary of the incident, British Columbians, including local residents directly impacted by the spill, have expressed disappointment that Imperial Metals, owner and operator of Mount Polley, has received no charges and no fines for the disaster, considered one of the worst environmental incidents in Canadian history.

“A disaster like this should never have happened in B.C., and it must never happen again,” Heyman said.

#MountPolley Investigation Still On, Federal Charges ‘In Play,’ Says BC Environment Minister https://t.co/p5xLwzp1Lr @GeorgeHeyman #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 3, 2017

As DeSmog Canada recently reported, while B.C. has reached the expiration date for provincial charges, the statute of limitations has not run out for federal charges under the Fisheries Act.

While two provincial investigations in the Mount Polley spill have been conducted, neither recommended charges or fines be levied against the company.

Yet one investigation is currently ongoing by the B.C. Conservation Service Office alongside the Department of Fisheries and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Heyman said the current investigation is “complex and thorough.”

Information gathered during the investigation will be brought to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, “should charges be recommended,” Heyman said.

“Potential charges under the federal Fisheries Act remain very much in play and, in fact, potential penalties are more significant.”

Under the Fisheries Act, Mount Polley could face $6 million in penalties for causing harm to fish and fish habitat and an additional $6 million for dumping deleterious substances without a permit into fish bearing waters.

“While the three-year anniversary of the disaster also brings us to the statute of limitations on provincial charges, British Columbians should know the overall objective continues to be ensuring a complete investigation,” he said.

“I have full confidence in the work of these law enforcement officials and I know that many concerned British Columbians join me in looking forward to the outcome of this important investigation.” 

Image: B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman. Photo: Stephen Hui via the Pembina Institute. Used with permission.

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As the three-year anniversary of the Mount Polley mine disaster approaches, so too does the deadline for the province to lay any charges against mine owner Imperial Metals.

Considered one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history, the failure of the Mount Polley tailings pond sent an estimated 25 million cubic metres of contaminated mine waste flooding into Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water for local residents of Likely, B.C., on August 4, 2014.

“I would have expected something to have happened by now,” fisheries biologist and Likely resident Richard Holmes told DeSmog Canada. “I know they had a lot of information to sift through but it has been three years. I’m hopeful there will be some charges forthcoming.”

While the time limit for provincial charges runs out in August, federal charges, including for violations of the Fisheries Act, can be brought for another two years.

An investigation is ongoing by the Conservation Service Office, aided by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment and Climate Change Canada.  

Meanwhile, the B.C. government granted Mount Polley permission to drain the mine directly into Quesnel Lake, where the vast majority of the spilled mine waste remains to this day. The B.C. government also gave Imperial Metals the go-ahead to build the Red Chris Mine in northwestern B.C., with the same tailings technology used at Mount Polley — despite experts recommending otherwise.

“I think the mining company is ahead now,” Holmes said. “Everything seems to have fallen in their favour since this disaster. Before the disaster they were looking at building a water treatment facility. Now they have basically a large filter in place and they just release everything directly into the lake.”

“I’m sure they’re happy about that.”

Alberta Coal Mine Slapped with $4.5 Million Fine for 2013 Tailings Spill

The absence of fines for the Mount Polley disaster was highlighted by a recent $4.5 million penalty handed out to a coal mining company in Alberta for a 2013 spill that released an estimated 670 cubic metres of tailings into tributaries of the Athabasca River. That spill was nearly 40,000 times smaller than the Mount Polley disaster.

Last month, the company responsible for the spill, Prairie Mines and Royalty, pleaded guilty to two violations of the federal Fisheries Act as well as one violation of the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act.

Over $1 million in federal fines were used to fund research for fish habitat and recovery while an additional $2.1 million was paid to the Environmental Damages Fund.

Provincially, the company paid $363,000 in fines toward a dam research project considering the safe storage of water at coal mines as well as $370,000 for an environmental education project for indigenous youth, the CBC reports.

Ugo Lapointe, Canadian program coordinator for MiningWatch Canada, said Mount Polley could still face similar repercussions in B.C.

“It took nearly four years to see those charges brought forward in the case of the coal spill,” Lapointe told DeSmog Canada. “So, technically, Mount Polley timing is still comparable.”

However, Lapointe added, a $4.5 million fine may not be enough to encourage large mining corporations to change the quality of mine management.

He added the maximum penalty for violating the federal fisheries act is $12 million, $6 million for causing harm to fish and fish habitat and $6 million for dumping deleterious substances without a permit.

MiningWatch brought a private prosecution against the Mount Polley Mining Corporation and the B.C. government for violations of the Fisheries Act last fall but the federal government asked the courts to stay the charges, a request that was made before MiningWatch was given the opportunity to present evidence. The case was dismissed this spring.

“The federal government is currently reviewing its Fisheries Act,” Lapointe said. “We think it is also time it reviews the fines and possible criminal charges for those responsible of polluting Canadian waterways and aquatic habitats.”

No Charges, No Fines For #MountPolley Mine Disaster as Three-Year Legal Deadline Approaches https://t.co/yk0H3yOBiC #bcpoli @jjhorgan

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 23, 2017

Underfunded Liability for B.C. Mines an Estimated $1.5 Billion

B.C. taxpayers bear the lion’s share of liability stemming from the province’s many mines.

A 2016 study conducted by economist Robyn Allan for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs found financial assurance policies for mines are “woefully inadequate” leaving more than $1.5 billion in underfunded liability on the shoulders of everyday British Columbians.

The exact costs incurred by mines, for expenses like environmental disasters like Mount Polley as well as for reclamation of abandoned mines, is no longer made available to British Columbians, Allan found, stating the price tag could be even higher.

British Columbians were on the hook for an estimated $40 million in cleanup and reclamation costs for the Mount Polley mine spill.

There are more than 120 tailings dams in British Columbia and despite recommendations made to the B.C. government after the Mount Polley disaster, risky mine procedures, including the practice of storing mine waste in giant wet tailings ponds continues to this day.

Since the Mount Polley disaster three new mines have been approved with wet tailings impoundments, including the giant KSM mine in northwestern B.C. that was recently granted federal approval to construct a tailings dam in fish bearing waters.

At least 10 new mines are proposed or under construction along the B.C./Alaska border, leaving Alaskans concerned about the province’s poor record of mine management.

“There are examples all over the world of responsible mining and that should become law in B.C.” Holmes said.

“But I haven’t seen any of the laws change. They’ve had three years to change them and have had recommendations coming from the Mount Polley investigation panel,” he said.

“But nothing’s changed. If I was an Alaskan I would be really worried about B.C. mines.”

Holmes said he would be worried in particular about the Red Chris mine which is owned and operated by Imperial Metals, the company responsible for the Mount Polley mine, and which also uses wet tailings technology.

“I hope the new government in B.C. will address those concerns. We haven’t done a very good job of looking out for our neighbours.”

Image: The Mount Polley mine disaster, August 2014. Photo: Cariboo Regional District

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