Back in 2007, construction was halted on a gigantic open pit mine called Galore Creek, located in B.C.’s gold and copper-rich northwest corner. When construction costs more than doubled to $5 billion the plan was abandoned. Ultimately the bold vision on paper could not be made real on the ground — or at least, not at a cost that mining giant Teck-Cominco was willing to pay.

Flashing forward over a decade, an even bigger mine proposal is getting ever closer to becoming real. Or is it?

Based on sheer scale and audacity, the plan to build the KSM mine near the Alaska border is more science fiction than resource extraction. Multiple tailings dams will need to be built on the sprawling alpine site over the coming decades: the tallest (240 metres) will stand about 20 metres higher than Nevada’s Hoover Dam. And much of the 2.3 billion tonnes of tailings generated over the 52-year mine life will be perched forever above the salmon-rich Nass River watershed.

Because the copper and gold are so low grade, the miners will have to move and sift through mountains of rock (much of it potentially acid generating) to access the valuable metal — necessitating active water treatment for hundreds of years. Maybe forever.

As of this writing, KSM now has most of its permitting in order, and is just one big step away from starting construction. But will this ever-evolving mine proposal — a throwback to Galore Creek and the WAC Bennett era of wacky 1950s development schemes — ever move beyond being a plan on paper?

Rugged peaks and glaciers near the proposed KSM mine. The KSM mine project is composed of four mineral deposits, the Kerr, Sulphurets, Mitchell and Iron Cap. The view north in this image shows the proposed location of the Sulphurets open pit mine and future waste rock dump. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Seabridge is a developer, not a miner

Most Canadians have never heard of it, but KSM is one of the planet’s largest undeveloped deposits of copper and gold by reserves, with lots of silver and molybdenum as well. It’s just one of at least a dozen mines proposed in B.C.’s northwest corner — made economical by a recent $730+ million B.C. Hydro extension of the electrical grid into the region.

Seabridge Gold, the Toronto company behind KSM, does not plan to mine the site — instead, it has explored the property and stickhandled to get most of the permits. The company is currently shopping for a major company to either form a joint venture or buy the “shovel-ready” mine outright. The company has estimated it will cost US$5.005 billion — about $6.5 billion Canadian — to get the project up and operating.

No one has publicly stepped forward yet to invest — but the project has a lot going for it on paper.

“Like Galore, we’re talking about a rugged topography, but it has access to [grid] power, there’s amenable government, and they can sell their [metal] through an available port,” says a financial analyst familiar with the project, who asked not to be named. “But obviously capital is the big one. You’re going to have to want to put down $US5-plus billion.”

This might not be such a stretch, he says. For years big mining companies have been “cash constrained” and focused on expanding existing mine sites, but this appears to be changing. He points specifically to Goldcorp’s June 2017 investment in Chile’s Maricunga gold belt region.

“We’re starting to see the larger companies moving back into greenfields.”

B.C.’s transboundary mines along the Alaska border. Map: The Narwhal

Will KSM require permanent water treatment?

At the end of KSM’s estimated 52-year life, the company has predicted the mine site will require about 200 years of water treatment — to remove metal/minerals from the water that comes into contact with disturbed areas on the site.

But the Alaskan tribes and commercial fishermen living downstream of the proposed waste rock dumps on the salmon-rich Unuk River say KSM could require active water treatment in perpetuity. Based on potential water impacts alone, Robert Sanderson Jr., chairman of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission representing 15 member tribes, says mines on the scale of KSM should never be built.

“Who’s going to take care and look after these tailings [and waste rock] sites once the mines close? They don’t have enough money to do that, they have already proven that with Mount Polley. And Canada has a bad history of just up and leaving bad tailings sites as they are.”

The Mount Polley mine had a total tailings storage volume of 44 million cubic metres. B.C.’s massive transboundary mines require much higher volumes of waste storage. The tailings facility at Red Chris can store up to 305 million cubic metres of mine waste. Shaft Creek has a storage volume of 588 million cubic metres and KSM a staggering 1,213 million cubic metres. Graphic: The Narwhal

Sanderson is alluding to the Tulsequah Chief mine, on a tributary of the transboundary Taku river, which has been leaching acid rock drainage into this salmon system for more than 50 years. If many Alaskans distrust promises of mining sustainability from the B.C. side, the Tulsequah Chief is the reason.

Will KSM mine make water cleaner?

Seabridge Gold has maintained that building KSM could end up improving water quality in the Unuk drainage. That’s because the mine, located in the heart of the Coast Mountains, is surrounded by glaciers that are continuously grinding down rock. As a result, there are already elevated levels of metals and minerals in the Unuk tributary waters downstream of the mine. Collecting and treating water as it filters through the mine site can actually result in cleaner water downstream.

Sanderson is not impressed by this idea. “Aquatic life in these rivers has adapted to these preexisting conditions [with high minerals/metal in the water] before miners ever came in,” he says. “So how can they tell us they will make the river system cleaner?  I call bullshit on that.”

The tribes are not alone in their concerns. For years, Alaska state and federal officials, environmentalists, fishermen and tribal governments have been reaching out to B.C., Canada and Washington, D.C., to get a greater say in how B.C. transboundary mines are permitted.

(Progress has been slow: last year for example, Alaska conservationists filed a complaint to Global Affairs Canada alleging Seabridge Gold violated international guidelines on consultations with stakeholders, but it was ultimately dismissed.)

Sanderson says many Alaskans will continue to fight proposed northwest mines like KSM.

“We’re not against mining, but we’re against the size and scope of these mines.”

Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine tailings pond in northwest B.C. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Nisga’a and Gitanyow on KSM mine

On the B.C. side, the Nisga’a Nation and the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Office have both signed very different KSM agreements with Seabridge Gold. Almost four years ago to the day, Nisga’a signed an impacts benefit agreement with Seabridge Gold that commits the company to provide jobs and contracting opportunities at KSM, annual payments based on a percentage of net profits, and more.

“Bringing prosperity and self-reliance to the Nisga’a Nation is the first priority of [the] Nisga’a Lisims Government,” said President Eva Clayton in a written statement to The Narwhal.

Clayton added that the Nisga’a have engaged in a comprehensive environmental review process over and above the B.C./federal environmental assessment, including a second “voluntary assessment” of the proposed tailings facility, which was initiated by Seabridge in 2016.

“The Nisga’a Nation is satisfied that Seabridge has used the best available technology to ensure the safety of the [Nass river tributary] Bell Irving watershed,” she said.

The agreement with Gitanyow was to provide funding for baseline studies on potentially affected creeks that flow into the Nass river, and does not constitute support for the project, confirmed Joel Starlund, executive director of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs based in Kitwanga, B.C.

Seabridge Gold has proposed to negotiate an impacts benefit agreement with the Gitanyow, he says, but no agreement has been signed to date. In the meantime, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs — continue to assess KSM.

Starlund says the community has recently expressed concerns about the downstream effects of mine toxins like selenium on fish, and the possibility of a big future tailings spill.

“What happens if there’s a catastrophic failure?” Starlund asks. “There’s no plan in place for how to deal with that, or what that even might look like.”

He also points to a systemic problem with the joint federal-provincial environmental assessment processes that saw KSM approved.

“The [government] has to review the project as it is submitted. They can’t recommend that the scope of a mine be reduced by x tonnes/day in order to make it environmentally feasible.”

Like downstream tribes on the Unuk, the Gitanyow rely on salmon for subsistence — including all five Pacific species, although sockeye and Chinook are their food staples. The community is already concerned about chinook with the Nass fishery for chinook being closed last year due to low numbers.

“The dams they build to store their waste are never going to go away,” adds Gitanyow Chief Tony Morgan. “It’s like a ticking time bomb, with us living below.”

Is smaller better?

British Columbia’s newest mine — just south of KSM — is the opposite approach in many ways to the Seabridge project and by its smaller scale, it may present a more environmentally benign path forward for mining in the northwest.

Instead of establishing open pits and towering waste rock and tailings dams, Brucejack mine is chasing high-grade gold veins underground. It employs a “cut and fill” approach that removes the ore, grinds it up and returns much of it underground, where it is mixed with concrete and sealed.

A glacial highway leads west to Brucejack mine where the Brucejack Lake serves as a tailings impoundment. Further west shows a portion of the proposed location of the KSM mine. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Brucejack is similar to Eskay Creek, a tiny, fabulously rich gold mine built just to the northwest of KSM (it closed in 2008 after 14 years), which employed a similar scale and approach.

Despite its small size, Brucejack is now a major employer in northwest towns like Hazelton; the Nisga’a in May also signed an agreement with the province that could see them earn up to $8 million a year from the mine. (Clayton confirmed this mine currently employs 35 Nisga’a.)

Is this high-grade, lower impact approach to mining something everyone can live with in the northwest?

Guy Archibald, a staff scientist with the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, says the scale of Brucejack is relatively tiny, but the miners have been permitted to use Brucejack lake as a waste dump. It is not fish bearing, he says, but none of the water draining from the lake will be treated, either.

It’s difficult to compare tiny, super-rich underground gold mines to giant copper-gold porphyry deposits like KSM, says Stan Tomandl, a board member of B.C.’s Fair Mining Coalition. He predicts that KSM will not get built any time soon — but warns that as copper grows increasingly scarce in the world, massive low-grade deposits like KSM will be impossible to ignore.

“The thing that might get [KSM] built eventually is, it will take a lot of copper to wind the generators [required] to get us off of fossil fuels. But that’s 50 years, maybe 100 years away, it’s not right now.”

Moving targets

The smaller footprint is a big plus of Brucejack — but unlike this mine, KSM has actually grown in scope since it got provincial and federal environmental assessment approval in 2014.

Seabridge has continued to drill and find resources. In an updated October 2016 pre-feasibility study, the company announced to its investors a “different approach to developing the KSM Project” that includes increasing mill production from 130,000 tonnes per day to 170,000, and doing less open pit mining and more underground operations.

A spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines says that if the company wishes to change the project that was approved in 2014 it will need to apply for an amendment — something the ministry confirmed Seabridge Gold has yet to do.

In the meantime, the company has the go-ahead to build roads and a large work camp on the site — but still needs a mine permit to move forward.

Seabridge Gold did not respond to calls and emails to comment on this story. See the questions The Narwhal sent to the company below.*

Air of inevitability around big northwest mines

When the end finally came in late 2007, Galore Creek had more than 400 workers on the ground in northwest B.C. The logistics of moving men and materials across the mountainous topography was a nightmare; adding to the chaos, two separate consultants were unable to agree on what the mine would ultimately cost. The project’s cost eventually ballooned from $1.1 billion in 2006 to about $5 billion in late 2007.

Compared to this past fiasco, KSM has one huge advantage: if and when the mine is ready to move forward, BC Hydro will be there to provide cheap electricity. This fact is a danger to Alaska, Archibald says, because this inexpensive energy access lends an air of credibility and even inevitability to what remains an outlandishly complex and expensive mine proposal.

“The fact that the [northwest] transmission line was built to develop these mines, tells us the province has bet its financial future that these mines do happen.”

The Narwhal Seabridge Questions by The Narwhal on Scribd

*Article update: July 13, 2018 8:30am pst. This article was updated to include an embedded version of questions submitted to Seabridge.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

“If you’re in Vancouver this is way out in the middle of nowhere, but way out in the middle of nowhere is our backyard.”

Those are the words of Frederick Otilius Olsen Jr., the tribal president of a traditional Haida village on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.

When I met him, he had travelled to Ketchikan, Alaska, to meet with officials about the risk posed by the mining boom across the border in British Columbia.

He stood on the boardwalk overlooking Ketchikan’s fishing fleet and waved his hands animatedly while he told me about how his culture — and southern Alaska’s economy — depends on salmon.

The week before, I’d spent several hours flying in a small fixed-wing plane over B.C.’s mining boom to capture never before seen images of the province’s largest and most remote mines.

Door removed, I captured hundreds of frames as we passed over the Red Chris copper and gold mine, which began operation in late 2014. Its tailings pond and dam rises impossible and angular out of a soft, sloping valley.

Set within the vast and largely intact headwaters of northwestern B.C.’s greatest wild salmon rivers, the Red Chris mine is just one of 10 mines either in operation, in development or in advanced exploration stages in this region.

It is owned and operated by Imperial Metals, the company responsible for the Mount Polley mine disaster in central B.C. If the name seems familiar, it’s because in 2014, a tailings dam at Mount Polley collapsed, resulting in one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history. All told, 24 million cubic metres of contaminated mining waste flooded into a lake —  a source of drinking water and salmon-spawning ground that feeds the Fraser River.

A new study from the United Nations Environment Programme notes Canada has had seven known mine tailings spills in the last decade, only one less than China, which tops the list.

“The increasing number and size of tailings dams around the globe magnifies the potential environmental, social and economic cost of catastrophic failure impact and the risks and costs of perpetual management,” says the report.

A view from the sky gives perspective on both the enormity of the mines but also their proximity to Alaskans who, living downstream, fear they may unfairly suffer the consequences of another Mount Polley style accident.

“This is our Amazon right here and they’re not making any more of it,” Olsen Jr. said.

The following photo essay was made possible by 103 readers, who donated more than $10,000 to bring this unprecedented assignment to life.

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B.C. and Alaska share some of the world’s most productive salmon rivers. However, the region is also home to some of the largest untapped gold and copper reserves in the world. Gold is mined primarily for use in jewelry, while copper conducts both heat and electricity well, so has many uses, including in electrical equipment such as wiring, motors and solar panels.

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The Todagin Plateau on the edge of Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine is thought to have the world’s highest density of stone sheep. It is the traditional Tahltan hunting grounds for moose, sheep, goats and caribou.

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The wall of the Red Chris tailings dam is 105 metres high, about the height of a 35-storey building. Tailings are the byproducts left over from mining and include finely ground rock particles, chemicals and water. The rock particles and other chemicals sometimes undergo chemical reactions during storage that generate additional byproducts, such as acid, that can more easily leach into waterways.

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In recent years, B.C. has experienced an explosion in mine growth on the Alaska border. Red Chris and Brucejack mines are now in operation, while KSM and Galore Creek have the required approvals and are in development. Schaft Creek is currently under review and four more mines are in the advanced exploration stages. Unlike Mount Polley, much of the waste in these transboundary projects will be potentially acid generating, making it much more toxic.*

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The Red Chris tailings pond is an unlined, earthen centre-line type tailings dam — the same design Imperial Metals used at the ill-fated Mount Polley mine. An independent panel that reviewed the Mount Polley spill predicted two additional tailings dam failures could occur every 10 years in British Columbia if mine waste disposal practices aren’t improved. One of the panel’s key recommendations was for B.C. to move away from allowing liquid tailings ponds. There are currently more than 120 tailings dams across British Columbia.

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When the Red Chris gold and copper mine opened in late 2014, it became the first mine of its type to operate in the transboundary region. The Narwhal (formerly DeSmog Canada) requested a tour of the Red Chris mine but was told by an official that Red Chris does not provide “unsolicited tours.” Red Chris is owned by Imperial Metals, the same company responsible for Mount Polley. The largest Imperial Metals shareholder is oilsands billionaire and Calgary Flames co-owner Murray Edwards, who organized a $1-million Calgary fundraising dinner for former B.C. premier Christy Clark’s 2013 re-election campaign.

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The Red Chris mine has an expected daily throughput of 30,000 tonnes of ore for the 25-year lifespan of the project. The Canadian government did not conduct a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of the project, a process that would have opened the mine proposal to public input.

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The Brucejack mine encampment. Potentially acid generating waste rock from the mine is stored underwater in Brucejack lake.

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Red Chris Mine went ahead after Imperial Metals’ largest shareholder Murray Edwards helped arrange $150 million in loans and crown corporation BC Hydro paid most of the costs for the $746-million Northwest Transmission Line into the region.

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The Tulsequah Chief mine, a zinc and copper mine close to the Alaska border, has been leaking acid mine drainage into the Tulsequah River since it was first shut down in 1957. Attempts to re-open the mine have failed, along with several promises to clean up the site.

Other jurisdictions, such as Alaska and Quebec, demand large financial securities, paid up front to ensure companies are held responsible for any damage.

“If we were to put the bar higher and require payment of financial securities ahead of permitting and ahead of mining, this would be one one way to get rid of the mines that would be marginal and you would end up with the mines that are safest,” Ugo LaPointe of MiningWatch Canada told The Narwhal.

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Salmon canning at Alaska General Seafoods processing plant in Ketchikan, Alaska.

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— With files and additional reporting from Emma Gilchrist and Carol Linnitt

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Long-held perceptions of Canada as a country with strict environmental standards and B.C. as a province that values natural beauty are taking a near-fatal beating in Southeast Alaska, where many now regard Canadians as bad neighbours who are unilaterally making decisions that could threaten the region’s two major economic drivers.

Fishing and tourism — each billion-dollar industries — are the lifeblood of Southeast Alaska, where glaciers sweep down into rivers home to five species of wild salmon and massive snow-covered peaks tower over fertile wetlands.

Tourism accounts for 10,900 jobs in the Alaska Panhandle and salmon fishing employs 7,300 people.

Air and water are the only ways into communities such as Juneau, the state capital, and almost seven million hectares, or three-quarters of Southeast Alaska, are within the Tongass National Forest, where industrial activity is limited.

But, upstream, in northwest B.C., there is a new-style gold rush with an unprecedented number of applications for open-pit gold and copper mines, some made viable by construction of the Northwest Transmission Line and all requiring road access.

Alaskan politicians, tribes, fishing organizations and environmental groups have come together in a rare show of unity to condemn B.C.’s push to approve mines close to major transboundary salmon rivers, such as the Stikine, Taku and Unuk, which run from B.C. into Alaska. Tensions are running so high the groups are asking the International Joint Commission, designed to resolve Canada/U.S. water problems, to step in.

Canada is increasingly viewed as a “bad actor,” whose record — most recently illustrated by the Mount Polley mine tailings dam collapse — shows that the province’s environmental regulations and oversight is not strong enough to protect downstream communities.

“It’s the new wild west,” said Heather Hardcastle, a commercial fisherman and co-ordinator of Salmon Beyond Borders, pointing out that, even though Alaska has nothing to gain and everything to lose, Alaskans are being denied meaningful input into mine decisions.

10 Advanced Mining Projects in Northwestern B.C.

The new mines include Imperial Metals’ Red Chris, a copper and gold mine operated by the same company that owns Mount Polley, and Seabridge Gold’s massive KSM (Kerr-Sulpherets-Mitchell) mine, 30 kilometres from the U.S border and Misty Fjords National Monument, which will open up mining of the largest undeveloped gold reserve in the world. KSM has provincial and federal environmental assessment approval and is waiting for permits.

According to B.C.’s Ministry of Energy and Mines there are 10 advanced projects in the northwest corner of B.C. and numerous others in exploration phases.

Graphic: Salmon Beyond Borders

They include Kitsault (under construction), Silvertip (provincial permit granted in June), Tulsequah Chief (construction started, but project delayed), Brucejack (Mines Act permit application under review), Kutcho and Schaft Creek (both in the environmental assessment pre-application stage).

In comparison, there are only five operating mines in Alaska, of which two are in Southeast Alaska and one of which uses dry stack tailings, the method of dealing with acid-generating mine waste favoured by the expert panel that investigated the Mount Polley dam collapse.

The Canadian system appears to aim “to get to yes fast,” without consideration of other values when it comes to resource extraction, said Jev Shelton, a commercial fisherman and former member of the Pacific Salmon Commission, the joint Canadian/U.S. regulatory body designed to protect salmon stocks.

“It is certainly triggering a fair bit of anger,” Shelton said.

B.C. Moving 'Full Speed Ahead'

The pace and scale of development is huge, said Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders.

“B.C. is going full speed ahead without any brakes. It looks as if they’re trying to move as fast as they can before Alaska puts up hurdles.”

There is growing indignation that B.C. is not listening to Alaskan concerns and that additional input, promised in May after Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett met with Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott, amounts to little more than window-dressing.

“We were a bit stunned by Bill Bennett giving us the table scraps and saying Alaska can come in at the final stages of permitting — they’re saying we will involve you when the final decision has been made to build the mine,” Zimmer said.

Alaskan Concerns Ignored

Gillnetter and fisheries consultant Lindsey Bloom agrees that Alaskan questions are being ignored.

“Since I started working on this issue, the disregard of Canadian officials towards us is concerning,” she said.

While Mallott and Bennett were meeting in B.C., a group of Alaskan tribal leaders, fishing industry representatives and environmental advocates met with high-level provincial government staff.

However, it was an exercise in frustration because of the lack of answers or acknowledgement of downstream concerns, according to several people who attended the meeting.

“We tried to explain we don’t want more say in the permitting process, we want something to put us on an equal footing with B.C.,” Hardcastle said.

B.C. government staff appeared to think their task was to explain the process instead of listening to concerns and suggestions, said several members of the Alaskan delegation.

Mallott, who is leading an Alaskan transboundary waters working group, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada, that, during their meeting, Bennett was amenable to the notion of more Alaskan involvement and he has been invited to Alaska to continue the conversation.

Staff who have looked at B.C.’s technical permitting and assessment of mines believe the rules in B.C. and Alaska are generally equivalent, said Mallott.

“But there are significant differences. Whether the entire range of environmental assessment and permitting is robust enough to protect both B.C. and U.S. and Alaskan interests is still something we all need to be made more comfortable with,” he said.

“We would want Alaskan officials at the table when decisions are made in such areas of permitting that it is possible that catastrophic events could take place.”

Mount Polley Tailings Dam Collapse Stokes Fears Downstream

The pace of development and the cumulative impacts of the mines in B.C. are alarming, but it is the failures that haunt Alaskans.

The image of 24-million cubic metres of mine tailings and waste water sweeping down from the Mount Polley tailings dam is etched into memories, but there are others such as the constant irritant of the ongoing acid drainage from the Tulsequah Chief mine.

“It underlines the Canadian government’s lack of commitment to what happens in the river,” said commercial fisherman Len (Pete) Peterson.

The copper and gold mine, near the confluence of the Tulsequah and Taku Rivers, has been leaking acid since Cominco stopped mining in 1957. Since 1989, there have been numerous remediation and pollution abatement orders from the B.C. government, but the leakage continues.

Earlier this year the province gave Chieftain Metals Corp., the latest owner, permission to re-open the mine and the company is currently trying to obtain financing. However, hurdles include opposition from the Taku River Tlingit First Nation. In an attempt to circumvent the problem, the company is proposing a barging system, instead of an access road, but that is likely to be a problem for Alaskan gillnetters.

At Johnny Mountain, close to the Iskut River, operations ceased in 1993 and the company attempted to burn and bury equipment. Although there has been some soil remediation, what threat remains of acid rock drainage from the underground operation is unclear.

“They shoved (the equipment) into the mountain and blew it up,” said miner Joe Bradley, who recently flew over the area.

The test of B.C.’s process is how it is carried out and the “real world” results, Zimmer said.

“Alaska understands the B.C. process. Where has it gotten us? Mount Polley disaster, Tulsequah Chief and five decades of acid mine drainage, renewed talk of Taku River barging, a total lack of involvement on the evaluation of the Red Chris mine, a denial of Alaska’s request for a KSM panel review,” Zimmer said.

Photo: Chris Zimmer

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.