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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Selenium leaches from piles of waste rock left over from the mining process at Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines, contaminating nearby creeks and rivers. Photo: Callum Gunn

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

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

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

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

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

The study area, which assesses risk to human health, is broken down into six management units over an area that follows the Elk River from just north of Teck Resources’ coal mines into the Koocanusa Reservoir to the Canada-U.S. border. Map: Human Health Risk Assessment Supporting the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan / Ramboll

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coal contamination spurs search for new backup drinking water source in Rocky Mountain city

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tourists travel from all over to fly fish on the Elk River. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Costs to clean up Teck’s B.C. coal mines are billions higher than previously thought: report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Data on the province’s Elk Valley water quality hub shows Teck’s water treatment facilities are removing a portion of selenium pollution affecting the watershed. Graph: Government of British Columbia

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

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

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

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

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

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

British Columbia’s multimillion-dollar mining problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Some of Canada’s biggest employers have a poor track record of abiding by environmental laws. When laws are broken corporate leaders don’t go to prison; instead, the company is fined. But the fines are rarely severe enough to scare them into changing their ways, let alone enough to make companies repair environmental damage or build a cleaner future.

Everyone has seen the headlines over the years: coal company Teck fined $60 million for contaminating rivers in southeastern B.C., Manitoba paper mill fined $1 million for leaking toxin into Saskatchewan River and Husky fined $3.8 million for 2016 oil spill into North Saskatchewan River. The combined value of these three companies — Teck, Kraft Paper and Cenovus (Husky’s parent corporation) — is over $75 billion.

Monetary penalties for breaking environmental laws continue to rise. Yet, many companies are failing to maintain compliance and pollution continues to flow. This is especially true in the case of water.

Industrial pollution risks the health of waters — affecting Indigenous Rights, tourism and fisheries

Canada has an abundance of renewable surface water and groundwater — a precious resource that often gets taken for granted. Despite persistent challenges with drinking water insecurity and climate-induced water stress, water access in Canada is a privilege that many other regions of the world do not have.

A river fishing guide casts a fly rod on the Elk River in Fernie, B.C., where Teck’s coal mines have faced numerous environmental infractions. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Water pollution from natural resource extraction can hinder economic drivers like tourism and fisheries, impair Indigenous Rights, harm species at risk of extinction and perpetuate environmental racism.

How fines are issued for environmental infractions in Canada

There are two main options for fining big polluters: administrative penalties or court charges.

Administrative penalties proceed more quickly and have historically been used for relatively small fines. Several provinces including British Columbia and Ontario have recently upped maximum penalties to $750,000 and $200,000 respectively for corporations, depending on what law is broken.

Court charges are more common when federal law — such as the Fisheries Act — is also involved. Court convictions carry more social weight, allow for much bigger fines and threaten jail time. However, they can also take years and spending time in prison for harming the environment is an exceedingly rare outcome.

Flexibility in fine amounts and bogged down court systems have resulted in administrative penalties increasingly being favoured by regulators. For example, these penalties were nearly 20 times more frequent than court charges for industrial pollution under the B.C. Environmental Management Act from 2017 to 2022.

For many businesses, a hefty one-off fine for breaking an environmental law is an unsettling wake-up call. Responsible employers reflect on this seriously and take tangible steps to reduce the chance of their operations harming the environment in the future.

But for wealthy repeat offenders, fines may be treated as nothing more than the cost of doing business. This is where the problem lies, and some of Canada’s richest corporations prove it.

Repeat water polluters face big fines, but their profits are much, much bigger

Teck Resources has been fined again, and again and again for contaminating rivers and harming endangered fish in the Elk Valley, B.C., with toxic mining run-off from five nearby coal projects. The company has also been fined several times for toxic spills and leaks into the Columbia River from its nearby zinc and lead smelter.

The cost of these infractions has come to $83.1 million in combined fines. While this may seem a hefty sum, it equals just two per cent of Teck’s $3.9 billion dollar profits in 2023 alone.

In Quebec, Rio Tinto has been fined less than a million dollars on multiple occasions for illegal acid discharges into rivers from its smelters and refineries. The company’s market cap is $104 billion.

Oil giant Suncor Energy — $9 billion in 2023 earnings — has a history of repeatedly polluting the Athabasca River with sediment and sewage, in addition to oil spills and toxic releases during seabed drilling in offshore Newfoundland. None of Suncor’s fines related to water contamination has ever exceeded $1 million.

Scroll through any of these big polluters’ websites and you’ll find elegantly worded commitments to sustainability and caring for the environment. But actions speak louder than words, and no amount of greenwashing lingo can erase the smears from a record of chronic non-compliance with environmental laws.

Serious policy changes to better protect water — Canada’s most valuable natural resource — from repeat environmental offenders are warranted.

Hazeltine Creek, once a stream running through dense forest, was stripped bare by a flood of toxic tailings from the Mount Polley mine spill. The miner owner (Imperial Metals) was never fined for the incident and the cleanup will cost Canadian taxpayers $40 million. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Potential paths forward to curb environmental damage through repercussions

Laws work to protect the environment when they are strongly written and enforced. Amendments to the Clean Air Act in the United States in 1990 pushed polluters to innovate and resulted in a 60 per cent drop in air emissions over the following 20 years despite a 33 per cent increase in manufacturing output.

Mimicking the successful regulatory overhauls of the past is no guarantee of success today. Still, there are several paths forward to reduce environmental degradation from natural resource extraction that are worth considering:

1. A new tier should be added to environmental laws with no maximum penalty, only applying to companies with a current market cap over a certain threshold — perhaps a billion dollars. This new penalty class would meaningfully punish the wealthiest of polluters without infringing on responsible actors.
2. Court prosecutions should be favoured over administrative penalties because they allow for bigger fines and posting to the environmental “offenders registries” which attract more public attention. Threats of public shaming and heftier penalties may spur environmental action from companies looking to avoid hurting shareholder confidence.
3. Stop-work orders and revoking operating permits through sanctions are rarely used but should occur more often. Recent efforts, like forcing Coastal GasLink to stop work due to water contamination issues, removes the legal authority from a polluter and forces clean up before shovels resume digging.

The importance of healthy water systems to Canadians cannot be overstated — it is time to get serious about how this resource is protected.

Costly environmental cleanups are a worldwide problem: the Baltimore bridge collapse, for example

It’s too early to know the environmental ramifications of the Baltimore bridge collapse. What is clear, however, is that while corporate entities look to limit their own liabilities, the American public will most likely be left to pay for the cleanup.

This most recent disaster is not unlike the $40 million in cleanup costs sitting on Canadian taxpayers from a 2014 tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine that spilled 24 million cubic metres of toxic waste into Fraser River salmon habitat. The company (Imperial Metals) was never fined for the incident.

From Baltimore to the Fraser River, financial penalties to those who damage our environments remain pitifully low. Only by holding polluters truly to account can we effectively work to end environmental pollution both in Canada and around the world.

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.

Nearly 12 years after Ktunaxa Nation first urged the Canadian and U.S. governments to task an international body with investigating the mine pollution coursing through its territory, the two countries have agreed to a step the nation says is key to addressing contamination from B.C.’s Elk Valley coal mines.

In a statement Monday, ambassadors representing both countries announced they have asked the International Joint Commission to study and make recommendations to address the long-standing pollution in the Elk and Kootenay rivers in southeast B.C.

“We hope this is the beginning of a collaborative, transparent and effective process that will restore the waterways in the heart of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa [Ktunaxa territory] that are vital to the Ktunaxa ʔakⱡsmaknik (people),” Kathryn Teneese, chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council, which represents four First Nations in B.C., said in a statement Monday.

Selenium concentrations in the Fording and Elk rivers, which offer important habitat for at-risk westslope cutthroat trout and other species, have been a source of concern for Ktunaxa Nation and conservation groups for years. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

The International Joint Commission was established under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to address intractable disputes related to transboundary waterways and many have long seen it as a natural venue to address concerns over water pollution stemming from more than a century of coal mining in southeast B.C.

A key concern for the nation is the risk selenium may pose to fish and other aquatic life downstream.

Over more than a decade the Ktunaxa Nation, which includes four First Nations in B.C., the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, urged successive governments in the U.S. and Canada to refer the matter to the commission. But, for years, the nation faced resistance from governments in Canada.

How pollution from Canadian coal mines threatens the fish at the heart of communities from B.C. to Idaho

Now, after protracted negotiations, the U.S. and Canadian governments, in partnership with Ktunaxa Nation, have asked the commission to convene a governance body comprised of all affected governments within the region to develop an action place to reduce the impacts of mine pollution on the watershed. The commission is also being asked to establish a two-year study board of experts and knowledge holders to better understand the pollution and its impact on people and other species.

The news comes almost a year after U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they intended to reach an agreement in principle to address the impacts of water pollution in the Elk-Kootenay watershed — and at a pivotal moment for mining in the Elk Valley. Alongside proposals for new and expanded coal mining in the region, Teck announced late last year that it plans to sell its Elk Valley mines to Glencore, pending federal approval.

Pollution from Teck’s coal mines flows through the Elk Valley into the Kootenay River, which passes through Montana and Idaho before returning to B.C. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

In a joint Ktunaxa statement Monday, Gary Aitken Jr., the vice chairman of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, called the move to involve the International Joint Commission “an important first step in addressing the serious pollution problem in the Kootenai Watershed.”

“For decades, mining has impacted our waters, our people and our resources,” he said. “While we were seeking action, things moved far too slowly and the federal government looked the other way.” 

“I am glad to see that the U.S. and Canada are finally taking their commitments to Indigenous Peoples, the environment and the international Boundary Waters Treaty seriously.” 

Water contamination a long-standing concern for communities downstream of coal mines

Metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel, has been mined from the Rocky Mountains in southeast B.C. for more than a century. The mines, which are currently owned by Teck, are a major employer in the Elk Valley and foundational to the regional economy.

But every tonne of coal mined from these mountains results in an enormous amount of leftover waste rock. When that waste rock is exposed to rain and snow, naturally occurring minerals like calcite and selenium seep into the water, eventually flowing into nearby rivers and creeks.

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

Teck’s coal is transported by train from the Elk Valley to the Lower Mainland where it’s loaded onto tankers and shipped overseas to make steel. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Teck has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment facilities and other measures to address the pollution. But selenium continues to be detected downstream at concentrations that exceed the level the B.C. government recommends to protect aquatic life.

Monthly average selenium levels in the Fording River, downstream of Teck’s mines, ranged from 53 parts per billion to 61 parts per billion between October and December 2023. Those levels fall below the limit of 63 parts per billion outlined in Teck’s permit, which is the level the company is required to meet by the province, but are above the level B.C. recommends to protect aquatic life — two parts per billion.

In February, March and April of 2023, average selenium concentrations ranged from 63 to 68 parts per billion, exceeding the limits in Teck’s permits.

Chris Stannell, a spokesperson for Teck, said in a statement to The Narwhal the company is making “significant progress” implementing the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan. The plan, which Teck was ordered to develop in 2013, aims to stabilize and reduce pollution from the company’s mines.

The company currently has capacity to treat 77.5 million litres of water a day, which represents a fourfold increase in treatment capacity since 2020, Stannell said. He added the company has plans to build six more water treatment facilities by 2027, increasing treatment capacity to 150 million litres per day.

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

Data on the province’s Elk Valley Water Quality Hub shows Teck’s water treatment facilities are removing a portion of selenium pollution affecting the watershed. Graph: Government of British Columbia

Stannell noted the water treatment facilities remove between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium from the water they treat. 

But the company does not yet have sufficient capacity to treat all of the water contaminated by the mines before it flows downstream, according to information posted to the province’s Elk Valley Water Quality website.

In a statement, Casey Brennan, the conservation director at the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight, said the International Joint Commission “investigation could not have come soon enough.”

“For a crisis as complex as the one we face in the Elk Valley, there won’t be any simple solutions,” he said. “The announcement of this investigation is the first step on what will be a long road to change and it would not have happened without the steadfast leadership of the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation.” 

“We must ensure that scientific integrity and respect for Indigenous Peoples and knowledge along with transparency are upheld as guiding principles throughout the process,” he said.

In Montana, as in B.C., concerns about the risks to fish and other wildlife from contaminants that flow downstream from Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines have become a major concern. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

In an interview with The Narwhal, Teneese said despite the company’s efforts, not enough is being done to address the pollution or to ensure compliance with existing regulations and obligations.

“We’ve expressed concern that we don’t feel that they’re necessarily doing all that they can do,” she said. “We’re hopeful that an independent body, such as the International Joint Commission, can provide us with information and possible solutions about how we might move forward to address the concerns that have been raised over the years.”

Ultimately, the process “will require sustained effort from all governments involved,” Michael Dolson, chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes said in the joint Ktunaxa statement. “We will continue to work tirelessly to restore our rivers and the fish and wildlife that depend upon them,” he said.

International Joint Commission process could offer lessons for B.C.

For B.C., the International Joint Commission process may also offer learning opportunities about whether the province’s existing system of legislation and regulations is doing what it’s meant to — protecting the environment and, in particular, the water, Teneese said.

“We know how important water is to all living things,” she said. “If we don’t have water, we’re not going to be here for very long.”

In a joint statement, George Heyman, Josie Osborne, Murray Rankin and Nathan Cullen, the B.C. ministers responsible for environment, mines, Indigenous relations and water and lands, respectively, expressed their support and commitment to “fully engage” with the International Joint Commission process, which the province previously opposed.

“We welcome the creation of a process that brings together representatives to share progress, validate issues and facts, and gather information in a way that is respectful and inclusive of Indigenous Knowledge,” the ministers’ statement said.

“We see this as an opportunity to build upon existing work and enhance information sharing and transparency to the benefit of the region’s people and ecologically responsible resource development.”

“Improving and protecting water quality has always been a key priority for British Columbia,” the joint statement added.

British Columbia’s multimillion-dollar mining problem

In their formal request to the International Joint Commission, the U.S. and Canadian governments asked the body to establish a formal governance structure by the end of June that would allow for the co-development of future actions to address the pollution.

Making sure the study board and governance body have access to all the information they need to understand the contamination and develop solutions will be crucial to ensuring this process is helpful, Teneese said.

“We’re hoping that we can work in partnership with all involved to ensure that what is being left behind by us today is sustainable for future generations,” she said.

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.

When John Morris Sr. is asked where the sacred sites on the Taku River are, his answer comes easily. “This whole place is sacred,” the 84-year-old Elder says. In the spring, all five species of North American salmon fight the current to spawn. In the summer, bright orange salmon berries speckle the landscape. 

Morris Sr., a member of the Douglas Indian Association in southeast Alaska, said his grandparents, aunt, uncle and parents always reminded him that everything they needed was provided by the land there. 

The river and its tributaries meander throughout the territories of the Tlingit and the Tahltan peoples, and flow over the international border between British Columbia and Alaska. But for the past 67 years a small, oozing sore has leached untreated heavy metals into the waterways. The abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine in B.C. sits on the Tulsequah River about 10 kilometres upstream from its confluence with the Taku River. Cominco, now part of Teck Resources Ltd., opened the copper, lead and zinc mine in 1951. Cominco closed it six years later. Several companies took the mine over in the intervening years, but none was successful at restarting production.

Morris Sr. first saw the bright orange fluid, known as acid rock drainage, flowing out of a pipe when he was on a hunting trip in the late 1990s. There is no doubt this area is contaminated, he remembers thinking. Numerous water sampling programs have pointed to elevated levels of metals in the Tulsequah River. 

John Morris Sr., an Elder with the Douglas Island Indian Association, grew up fishing and hunting on the Taku River with his family. Photo: Chris Miller

Acid mine drainage runs through a culvert from the Tulsequah Chief mine, which has been polluting the Tulsequah River since the mine closed in the 50’s. Video: Chris Miller

The B.C. government permitted the site to remain in a state of “care and maintenance” after it stopped producing as it waited for various companies to restart the mine. None stepped up. For years environmental groups, Indigenous communities and the Alaskan government have called on B.C. to start a proper cleanup.

The mine’s last owner, Chieftain Metals Inc., collapsed with high debts. In 2022, the project was declared dead after lengthy receivership proceedings. The reclamation bill is estimated at $72 million with $1 million a year in monitoring costs. 

Though it no longer owns Tulsequah Chief, Teck said it has voluntarily supported the province and Taku River Tlingit First Nation’s interim reclamation and remediation work by contributing more than $3 million since 2021. Still, the B.C. government has less than one per cent of the security for reclamation and monitoring costs in hand.

Tulsequah Chief is one of several ugly remnants overshadowing a new era of mining aimed at building a low-carbon economy. The industry is looking to a future built on critical minerals needed for batteries, particularly for electric vehicles, but the legacy of past investment booms and a shortfall in the money set aside to deal with cleanup remains. 

Over several months, The Narwhal and The Globe and Mail have scoured publicly available records, reviewed financial data and interviewed experts about B.C.'s mine reclamation plan and found that in practice, the province was short $753 million of the estimated cleanup cost in its last financial year and some of the best-capitalized companies have not yet paid for future reclamation costs. 

A new interim government policy and push to collect money for clean-up costs could significantly close the gap in the coming months. Still, environmentalists, economists, Indigenous leaders and even mining industry players say the policy is falling short. They raise concerns that not enough is being collected, estimates for cleanup are too low and better incentives are needed for continuing remediation. In addition, there is a lack of protection if there’s a disaster, or as in the case of Tulsequah Chief, companies go bankrupt. 

For the last 67 years, the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine has leaved untreated heavy metals into the surrounding waterways. The bright orange fluid is known as acid rock drainage. Video: Chris Miller

To address this, mining reform advocates are calling for the interim policy to be formalized as enforceable regulations. Mining policy researchers and communities downstream from mines said the regulations should include a better process for more accurately estimating the future costs of cleanup and a shared pool of funds to protect taxpayers from covering costs when disaster strikes. 

Without enough funds set aside for cleanup, B.C. taxpayers will continue to be at risk.

Closing the gap in cleanup costs amid a push for critical minerals

The federal government is staking its plans for the future economy on big bets on mass electrification and the supply chains that will feed a decades-long shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles in the race to net zero. Critical minerals production is the foundation of that strategy. Global demand for such materials surged to US$320 billion in 2022, doubling during the previous five years.

B.C. does not intend to be left out. Its mining industry is banking on being a major supplier of the ingredients pulled from the earth for batteries used in transport and energy production and storage, such as copper, lithium and molybdenum, to name a few. According to the Mining Association of British Columbia, mining companies are now proposing 16 critical minerals mines, representing capital investments of $36.5 billion. If they all proceed, the mines could dump $10.9 billion in tax revenues into government coffers.

A mine project can’t just focus on the profits, however. It also has to plan for cleaning up the site after production ends. The polluter-pays principle is enshrined in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It means people and companies that disturb the environment must pay for cleanup and any other costs to society.

Several structures remain at the Tulsequah Chief mine camp along the banks of the Tulsequah River in British Columbia. The mine is one of several ugly remnants overshadowing a new era of mining aimed at building a low-carbon economy. Photo: Chris Miller

How much, when and in what form mining companies are required to pay differs from province to province. Generally, mining companies must give provincial governments a financial security to cover some of the cost of reclaiming a site. This is known as bonding and is meant to protect taxpayers if a company can’t or won’t reclaim a site. 

Compared with B.C., other provinces and jurisdictions have varying levels of stringency with security demands. Quebec requires hard financial securities to be put up in full and upfront to guard against a potential bankruptcy while a mine is still in operation. In Ontario, companies that can pass a corporate financial test can self-assure against reclamation cost, but in practice that rarely happens. Instead, almost all provide full security when they file their closure plans. 

Meanwhile, B.C. has no industry-funded pool of money set aside to deal with cleanup of mines that no longer have solvent owners, unlike what’s required for the oil and gas industry.

The province is playing catch-up to address the historical and growing costs of mine cleanup. Some companies have long since gone belly up, leaving taxpayers with millions of dollars in environmental liabilities. Others remain profitable, including some of the largest players in the province, such as Teck and Swiss commodities giant Glencore PLC, and they are still paying for the future remediation of past or currently producing mines.

In its most recent annual report, B.C.’s chief inspector of mines reported that it had collected $3.7 billion of an estimated total liability of $4.1 billion in 2022-23. It describes this as a shortfall of about $400 million. But that’s because costs are estimated and some companies have overpaid. Stripping out those overpayments, the difference as of March 31, 2023, was closer to $753 million. 

Over the past five years, the difference between the government’s coffers and what mining companies owe has shrunk. Last year, the overall gap shrank by $353 million. 

But a closer look at the report data shows that some mines are still millions of dollars short of securing their estimated cleanup costs, exposing taxpayers to potential costs. And, because the government’s current approach allows some mines to count minerals in the ground toward their security, the gap may never be completely closed.

The Tulsequah River flowing southeast toward the confluence with the Taku River. Numerous water sampling programs have pinpointed to elevated levels of metals in the Tulsequah River. Photo: Chris Miller

Acid mine drainage forms from a chemical reaction when surface water mixes with rocks that contain sulfur-bearing minerals. The resulting red, orange or yellow and can be harmful to humans, plants and animals. Photo: Chris Miller

The Taku River watershed also supports commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries in Alaska and British Columbia. Photo: Chris Miller

Uncertainty and risk in B.C.’s new mining policy

David Chambers, founder and president of the Montana-based Center for Science in Public Participation, said B.C. is behind most other jurisdictions as it tries to collect the full cost of mining liabilities. Chambers, who has more than 40 years of experience in mineral exploration and development, formed the non-profit corporation to provide technical assistance on mining and water quality to public interest groups and tribal governments.

“It's pretty accepted here in the U.S. … that you have to have a 100-per-cent coverage for your financial assurance when the mining starts,” Chambers said. B.C.’s new policy changes are a step in the right direction but still carry some risk, he said.

In B.C., the financial security can be in the form of cash, letters of credit, surety bonds, guaranteed investment certificates or cash equivalents. It’s returned once the mine is restored to a “safe and environmentally sound state.”  

Mineral reserves can also sometimes count toward financial security. The government describes this as an incentive for exploration. Mines that have been operating for more than five years and that have a lifespan exceeding 10 years can use up to 10 per cent of the value of their reserves toward a quarter of their security. 

The policy assumes that there is mineral wealth that can be dug out if needed, but that isn’t always the case. Allowing companies to use reserves as security is risky because demand for minerals and commodity prices fluctuate, Chambers, a geophysicist, said.

Counting minerals in the ground is an example of what’s called a “soft” assurance, since its ultimate value is somewhat uncertain. “Hard” financial assurances, such as cash in hand or trusts, don’t fluctuate and are readily available. Quebec, for example, requires hard financial assurances from mining companies. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, a global coalition of mining companies, labour unions, nongovernmental organizations and businesses buying minerals, has published international standards recommending closure funds be reliable and readily liquid. 

“What if the mine's reserves don't prove to be as viable or economic as you hoped? What if you can't find another owner for the mine in the event that that owner goes bankrupt? What if a commodity price downturn undermines the business case for the recovery of those reserves?” asked economist Jason Dion, senior research director at the Canadian Climate Institute.

The B.C. government’s policy of accepting soft assurances leaves taxpayers exposed, especially if a severe commodity-price downturn triggered a wave of abandonment, Dion said.

Today, amid the desire to become key suppliers of critical minerals, small mining companies are struggling to attract investment as prices for commodities have tumbled, prompting them to call for Ottawa to fund projects directly.

In B.C. there are five bankrupt or inactive companies that did not provide enough financial assurances to clean up their sites before going out of business, according to the most recent chief inspector’s report. These companies left an unpaid cleanup bill of about $80 million. 

And some historical projects will require maintenance in perpetuity. The closed Britannia Mine, near Squamish, B.C., cost taxpayers approximately $46 million to remediate and requires a water treatment plant that costs $3 million a year to operate. It was described as one of the “most contaminated areas in North America” and water treatment is expected to be needed forever.

Today in B.C., cleanup costs are estimated by mining companies and provided to the government. There are government standards and an Excel document to standardize the process. The province also adds a 15 per cent top-up to the industry estimate. The province said it is currently updating this process.

Guy Archibald, the executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, at home in Juneau, Alaska. He has worked on transboundary mining issues between Alaska and British Columbia to create more stringent mining regulation in Canada to protect the downstream Alaskan communities. Photo: Chris Miller / The Narwhal

But the government and industry drastically underestimate the true cost and timeline of mine cleanups, says Guy Archibald, executive director for the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. The organization represents 15 sovereign tribal nations in Southeast Alaska. Archibald is an analytical environmental chemist who has worked for more than two decades helping industry control and monitor discharge and pollution. 

The current approach is “completely inadequate” and does not protect British Columbians from financial and environmental costs, Archibald said. The province needs to take a more precautionary approach and better assess the growing risks of major mines, especially for projects that will require water treatment for hundreds of years or more, he said.

For specialists working in reclamation, the growing cleanup costs of the abandoned Giant Mine and Faro Mine in the Yukon loom as a warning. Giant Mine, abandoned in 2005, is now expected to cost federal taxpayers more than $4 billion for remediation. Faro Mine, abandoned in 1998, could cost an estimated $2 billion for cleanup and continuing maintenance.

Selenium occurs naturally in rocks in the Elk Valley. When these massive piles of waste rock are exposed to rain and snowmelt, the contaminant slowly leaches into the water, eventually finding its way into nearby rivers and creeks. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Teck Resources, Canada's largest mining company, struck a US$8.9-billion deal to sell Elk Valley Resources in November 2023. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

B.C.’s biggest mining liability gets a new owner  

For Teck, Canada’s largest mining company, 2023 was a pivotal year. After a lengthy saga, which included fending off a hostile takeover bid from Glencore and Teck shareholders voting down a plan to split off its B.C. metallurgical coal business, the company struck a US$8.9 billion deal in November to sell that business, Elk Valley Resources. The buyers: Glencore, Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. and South Korean steelmaker POSCO. 

These mines are the biggest liability on the books for the province at $1.9 billion. Teck currently has provided $1.5 billion and plans to have the full amount in place by March, as required by the government, said company spokesman Chris Stannell. The bonding Teck has set aside for the Elk Valley coal operations will be transferred to the new owners, Stannell said. Glencore said it has committed to keeping up with the rehabilitation and closure work. 

Meanwhile, as of the most recent chief inspector’s report, Glencore had provided just a small fraction of the reclamation securities for two of its five B.C. mines, leaving a future cleanup bill of more than $8.6 million. Glencore will provide what it owes to the province by the end of March 2024, company spokesperson Charles Watenphul said in an e-mail.

Five mines face possible penalties for falling behind on their reclamation securities, according to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. The ministry would not disclose which mines, but said the information would be posted on the B.C. Mines Information website once a final decision is made.

The current interim policy doesn’t have enough teeth behind it, said Allen Edzerza, a Tahltan Elder formerly with the BC First Nations Energy and Mining Council. According to the Mines Act, the chief permitting officer has a lot of discretionary power in how securities are collected. Edzerza wants to see clear laws to ensure mining companies are providing hard financial assurances toward the cost of reclamation. “If you want to be enforceable, if you want clarity, put it in legislation.”

Allen Edzerza, Tahltan Elder formerly with The First Nations Energy and Mining Council, believes there should be more stringent legislation to ensure there is enough money set aside to clean up after mines. Photo: Jimmy Jeong / The Narwhal

Warnings of a growing liability 

B.C. has faced criticism in the past for the big gap between the estimated cleanup costs of mines and the financial securities held by the province. In 1984, it held just $10 million in securities and the gap kept widening. By 2016, the B.C. auditor general warned that the cost of reclamation for major mines was more than $2.1 billion and the province held less than half that amount. Taxpayers were at risk for a $1.2 billion liability.  

The new interim policy aims to help close the gap. It requires new mines and those with less than five years of production left to pay in full for the damage caused for the next five years. The estimated liability of a mine is reassessed every five years.  

That schedule allows cost estimates to better reflect changes to costs over time and allows companies the flexibility to adjust their cleanup plans, the mines ministry said.

The mines department said it is confident the current financial instruments allow the government access to the reclamation security if required. Collecting beyond the first five years would create a negative incentive for mines to plan for an “artificially short” life span, it said. For example, if a project comes forward with a 30-year plan, the department does not want to penalize it for planning for a longer mine life.

“For many years, companies have been let off the hook,” Mines Minister Josie Osborne said in an interview. “It is a decades-old problem here in British Columbia, and our government is working hard to take action and change this.” 

Josie Osborne, B.C. minister of energy, mines and low carbon innovation, says the province is working towards closing the liability gap, which has been a decades-old problem. Photo: Melissa Renwick / The Narwhal

The province has made progress toward closing the liability gap, said Rangi Jeerakathil, a partner at law firm MLT Aikins. Jeerakathil specializes in environmental, energy and Aboriginal law, as well as corporate social responsibility. 

“In B.C., I think, the approach that they're taking probably makes sense,” Jeerakathil said. He described the securities system as a balancing act between forcing companies to tie up too much capital that could otherwise be used to expand the business and create jobs, and protecting the environment as well as taxpayers who could be left on the hook for cleanup.

Incentivize better designs and ongoing reclamation

While the legacy of current coal projects in the Elk Valley is debated, there are proposals for new mines in the region. NWP Coal’s Crown Mountain project is undergoing federal and provincial assessments and hosting community open houses for feedback. Its goal is to start building by 2026. 

The province’s new approach to fully bonding for the first and last five years of a mine covers the riskiest times for a project, NWP Coal project director David Baines said. At the start, a mine has its highest capital costs and lowest cash generation. Nearer to closure, production will slow down and so will revenues.

Tying up a lot of money at once just in case all the mines in B.C. go bankrupt at once doesn't make sense to Baines. Instead, he’d like to see more tools to encourage progressive reclamation — cleaning up while mines are still active — and better designs. 

Crown Mountain is still seeking permits and hasn’t put down a reclamation security or estimated the cost of cleanup yet. Baines said his philosophy is to try and reduce the impact as much as possible during the planning of the mine. It’s a practice of “designing your mine so that chemicals and materials don't leach out of the rocks,” Baines said. 

After a mine shuts down, it could need water treatment to ensure any mined materials left behind don’t pollute the waterways. Exactly how to operate and finance water treatment that could be needed for more than 100 years is a continuing discussion in the mining industry. It all feels “like a paper game”, Baines said. “No one knows what it's really going to cost, what those reserves are worth or what inflation is going to do.”  

Ultimately, if a company can’t afford reclamation then a project should not go forward, he said. 

The Tulsequah Chief mine has been polluting acid mine drainage into the Tulsequah River since the mine closed in 1957. Photo: Chris Miller

No protections from disaster

The idea that a lot of money could be needed all at once doesn’t feel far off to Archibald. He points to the 2014 Mount Polley disaster in which a tailings dam collapsed and sent a torrent of water and waste into the local watershed. The B.C. public paid $40 million in cleanup costs while no charges or financial penalties were brought against owner Imperial Metals Corp. The mine is back in operation today.

Beyond catastrophic failures, extreme weather from climate change presents new problems for major infrastructure. The lack of a contingency fund is a major gap in current policy, say mining reform advocates.

Archibald, Dion and others are calling for a shared pool of funds that all mine operators pay into to help cover costs that aren’t in closure plans, sudden closures and catastrophic events. Archibald imagines something similar to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund that was created in the U.S. after the Exxon Valdez spill that cost billions in cleanup costs. The fund comes from a fee on imported and domestic oil.

B.C. has its own template used in its energy industry. The province’s Orphan Site Reclamation Fund is a pool of money funded through levies on oil and gas permit holders for cleaning up wells and other facilities that no longer have viable owners.

“It's not really even realistic to think that a single mining company could provide assurance against the cost of a worst-case environmental disaster,” Dion said. He hopes that the B.C. government takes a hard look during phase two of its public interest bonding strategy. During the next year, the government plans to review financial assurance mechanisms for planned and unplanned cleanup costs for all types of industrial projects.

When asked about creating a specific shared pool for the mining industry, Minister Osborne pointed to existing “strong environmental legislation” and said the government plans to continue monitoring the interim policy for improvement. 

The province’s mining industry is an enthusiastic supporter of the government’s policy, saying it is stringent and should give taxpayers comfort that they won’t be left on the hook for cleanup and reclamation. It will encourage long-term stewardship that will help support future development of critical minerals, said Michael Goehring, CEO of the Mining Association of British Columbia.

“That's good for industry to have the certainty, and I think it's good for British Columbians,” he said.

The Tulsequah River, and the greater Taku River watershed, sprawls through the wilderness of west coast of North America. The Taku has all five species of pacific salmon. Video: Chris Miller

But the policy hasn’t eliminated concerns for everyone. The area around the Taku is also known by a different name to prospectors and miners: The Golden Triangle. It’s a region renowned for its promise of gold, silver and copper deposits.

Just downstream from the Tulsequah Chief mine, on the west bank of the river, Canagold Resources Ltd. is seeking permits to start construction on its New Polaris gold mine. Canagold will file its plans for mine closure in its detailed project description in the coming weeks. It will include the bonding plans as required in the B.C. policy, as well as details of its consultation with the First Nations, said Canagold CEO Catalin Kilofliski. He described his company’s relationship with the Indigenous community in the region as collaborative and transparent.

John Morris Sr., an Elder with the Douglas tribe of the Taku River Tlingit, is shocked there could be another mine on the Taku River when the Tulsequah Chief mine still hasn't been cleaned up. Photo: Chris Miller / The Narwhal

The New Polaris project is different from Tulsequah Chief on the other side of the river, partly because there will be no acid drainage, he said. “The project does not resemble anything at the other project, due to natural reasons. And any historical legacy existing on our project will be dealt with and be an integral part of project planning all the way to closure and reclamation,” Kilofliski said. 

Still, Elder John Morris Sr. wrote in a recent op-ed that he finds it “almost unbelievable” the government would entertain an application for another mine while the legacy of the old one has not been fully dealt with. “The Taku will continue to feed people for thousands of years into the future, if we just keep it clean and flowing freely.”

He worries about the future of the watershed as it continues to tempt prospectors. He acknowledges there is demand for cellphones and minerals. It’s not about butting heads with industry, he said, it’s just about putting aside enough money to clean up.  

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.

The small Rocky Mountain city of Fernie, B.C., is on the hunt for a new backup drinking water supply after selenium levels exceeded provincial water quality guidelines in tests of its secondary water source earlier this year.

For decades, selenium has leached into local waterways from piles of leftover waste rock at coal mines in the Elk Valley, owned by Canadian mining giant Teck Resources. The company has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment and other measures to reduce the pollution. While it says its efforts are making a difference, selenium, a naturally occurring chemical element, continues to course throughout the watershed.

After recording selenium exceedances in its secondary drinking water source in April, the city announced on Dec. 7 it would begin drilling test wells this month as part of a search for a new backup water source. 

The city said testing of the main drinking water source in Fairy Creek did not detect what it described as “selenium concentrations of concern.” 

In an interview, Fernie Mayor Nic Milligan said he doesn’t have any concerns about the city’s drinking water supply at this point and commended the community’s water operators for their “cautious and careful” management of the drinking water system.

What he wants to avoid, he said, is a scenario where the city is unable to provide safe drinking water in the future. “Out of an abundance of caution, now is the time to investigate alternative backup sources,” Milligan said.

When the massive piles of waste rock at Teck’s coal mines are exposed to rain and snowmelt, selenium slowly leaches into the water, eventually finding its way into nearby rivers and creeks. Photo: Callum Gunn

Fernie relies on water from the backup wells during periods of high turbidity in Fairy Creek when the water becomes cloudy with suspended particles. This is especially an issue during the spring melt and has led to boil water advisories in the past.

Randal Macnair, the Elk Valley conservation co-ordinator with the Kootenay-based organization Wildsight, worries elevated selenium levels could mean a return to more regular boil water advisories if, during times of high turbidity in Fairy Creek, the city can’t draw from its backup supply.

“It’s an inconvenience for most and it’s a legitimate health concern for many,” Macnair said of the boil water advisories.

The backup wells — which alongside supporting infrastructure cost $5.45 million to build — began operating in 2018. They are located at James White Park near the Elk River, where selenium levels have risen as coal mining in the region expanded.

According to the city, the river influences the groundwater source at James White Park and has at times caused selenium concentrations to exceed B.C. water quality guidelines.

“It’s a frustration, ultimately, but we have a plan and we’re working on that plan,” Milligan said.

In a statement to The Narwhal, Teck spokesperson Chris Stannell said “Teck and the City of Fernie are both working to monitor water quality in municipal wells and Teck is providing funding and technical support to identify a new backup water source.”

B.C. guidelines for selenium in water ‘very cautious’ to account for exposure from multiple sources

Selenium is an essential mineral for the body in small quantities and plays an important role, for instance, in regulating thyroid hormones, according to Health Canada. It can be found in food, in soil, in water and in the supplement aisle of your local pharmacy.

Exposure to high concentrations of selenium over a long period of time, however, can lead to a concerning health condition called selenosis, Fatemeh Sabet, a medical health officer with the Interior Health Authority, explained in an interview. Symptoms can include fatigue, hair and nail loss, weakness and dizziness.

$1.2B later, Teck Resources has barely put a dent in its pollution problems, documents show

According to Sabet, selenium concentrations detected in water from the James White Park wells this year ranged from three parts per billion to 12 parts per billion, at times exceeding B.C.’s guideline of 10 parts per billion.

Sabet noted that limit is “very cautious” and is lower than Health Canada’s guideline for selenium in drinking water, which is 50 parts per billion.

The province has taken a more precautionary approach because people in B.C. can be exposed to more selenium through their food, due to higher concentrations in the soil in some regions, including the Elk Valley, she explained.

But if selenium concentrations are below 10 parts per billion, “we are confident that people are accessing safe sources of water in terms of exposure to selenium,” Sabet said.

The city is continuing to use the James White Park wells when needed, but only when selenium concentrations are below B.C.’s guidelines.

Selenium levels are closely monitored, Milligan said, which means the city can react quickly to prevent water with higher concentrations from getting into the system.

Mine contamination undermined reliability of Fernie’s backup water source

According to a spokesperson for the city, testing completed in 2012 — before the James White Park wells were constructed — detected selenium levels of 5.2 parts per billion and 5.4 parts per billion.

Macnair, who was on city council at the time, said the understanding at that point was that there wouldn’t be any issues with selenium at that site.

Over the last several years, Fernie has turned to the James White Park wells to avoid boil water advisories during periods of high turbidity in Fairy Creek or to supplement water supplies when the creek is running low. In 2021, the backup wells supplied approximately 23 per cent of the community’s drinking water and 13 per cent in 2022, according to the city’s annual drinking water reports. 

Not only is the Elk River important habitat for westslop cutthroat trout and other wildlife, it also supports an important fly-fishing tourism industry in Fernie. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

But in April 2023, when turbidity levels in Fairy Creek crept upwards, Fernie ran into trouble with its backup source. First, there was a mechanical issue with the James White Park wells, which meant the city had to draw from Fairy Creek despite the poor water quality. Officials advised residents to boil water before drinking it or using it to wash fruit and vegetables.

A few days later, water quality in Fairy Creek had somewhat improved, and though the city said health risks were minimal, it still urged children, the elderly and anyone with weak immune systems to boil their water before drinking it. By this point the mechanical issues with the backup wells had been resolved, but the wells still couldn’t be used. Testing showed selenium concentrations were too high, the city said in a public notice at the time.

Macnair said Wildsight asked the city to provide the complete set of selenium testing data but the city has not released that information. The Narwhal also asked the city for testing data from the last year and was provided the most recent annual water quality report and the highest selenium concentration detected in the wells — 12.2 parts per billion.

“This is a sensitive and really critical issue,” Macnair said. “It requires full transparency.”

Selenium contamination is a widespread issue downstream of Teck’s mines

Fernie isn’t the first community to run into problems with selenium in its groundwater. Just a few years ago, Sparwood, a municipality about 30 kilometres northeast of Fernie, drilled a new drinking water well to replace one where selenium concentrations were at times higher than B.C.’s guidelines. Several private wells have also been affected. 

There are also significant concerns about the threat selenium poses to fish and other aquatic life.

Selenium levels in the Fording and Elk rivers are consistently higher than what the B.C. government considers to be protective of aquatic life and are a particular concern for at-risk fish. In fish, too much selenium can impede reproduction and cause deformities such as curved spines, misshapen skulls and abnormal gills.

Data on the province’s Elk Valley water quality hub shows Teck’s water treatment facilities are removing a portion of selenium pollution affecting the watershed. Graph: Government of British Columbia

According to the Elk River Alliance, a community-based charity that monitors water quality in the Elk River, selenium concentrations in the river around Fernie range from about five parts per billion to 15 parts per billion. That’s considerably higher than natural levels — around 0.4 parts per billion — detected in tributary streams not affected by mining, the group says. It’s also above the two-part-per-billion guideline the B.C. government considers protective of aquatic life.

According to Teck, the company’s water treatment facilities remove between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium from the water they treat. Teck is continuing to increase treatment capacity, but does not currently have capacity to treat all of the water contaminated by its mines.

Fernie, Teck investigating new backup drinking water source near Lizard Creek

In the meantime, Teck monitors drinking water in both municipal and private wells in the Elk Valley and in some cases has provided bottled water when selenium contamination has exceeded water quality guidelines. 

In Fernie, alongside water monitoring, the company is investing in additional water treatment to address turbidity issues at Fairy Creek and providing funding and technical support to assist in finding a new backup source of drinking water.

Teck has “come to the table and they are being, in my mind, very responsible in terms of recognizing their influence on the watershed and working with communities and private well owners to ensure that they have safe drinking water,” Milligan said.

Fernie is investigating the potential for groundwater aquifer near Lizard Creek, a prime trout-spawning habitat, to serve as a new backup source of drinking water. Mayor Nic Milligan says avoiding impacts to the creek will be front of mind. Photo: Jesse Winter/ The Narwhal.

Asked whether the company will cover the costs of the replacement wells, the mayor said, “there will be an ongoing conversation about who’s responsible for the cost here.”

These massive B.C. coal mines are about to get a new owner. Why some are worried about Glencore’s record

But it could be several years before Fernie has a new, reliable secondary source of drinking water.

The city is now drilling test wells on parkland near Lizard Creek. In the spring, flow and water quality testing will be done to assess the viability of the wells as a new secondary water source.

Milligan said if the tests show it’s a viable source of drinking water there will be a robust environmental assessment. And if the risks to Lizard Creek are too high, Milligan said he expects the city would consider another site for the wells.

“That is a vitally important trout spawning stream,” he said. “I have no interest in impacting Lizard Creek through this process.”

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.

In October 2012, Ktunaxa Nation wrote to then U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and Canada’s foreign affairs minister of the day, John Baird, asking them to task an international commission with investigating cross-border pollution from a string of massive coal mines in southeast British Columbia.

The nation, whose territory spans parts of B.C., Alberta, Montana, Idaho and Washington State, was growing increasingly concerned about the threat this pollution posed to important fish populations — and Teck Resources, which owns the mines, was planning to expand its operations.

The next year, the B.C. government ordered Teck to develop a plan to address its growing pollution problems. Since then, the company has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment and other measures to control the contamination. At the same time, though, mining was allowed to expand and despite the company’s efforts, it continues to pollute international waterways.

After more than a decade of concerted efforts by Ktunaxa Nation to garner support for an international inquiry into the pollution, the proposal appears to be gaining traction. As Canada and the U.S. negotiate a path forward, the government of B.C., which had previously been opposed to involving an international commission, has signalled a change of heart in a move the nation called “a surprising but long overdue turn of events.”

In Montana, there are growing concerns about the risks to fish and other wildlife from contaminants that flow downstream from Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Selenium and other contaminants were found to be rising in the Elk River in the 1990s and subsequent research pointed to the mines upstream, according to a B.C. government website that outlines the history of water quality issues in the Elk Valley. From the Elk River, the pollution flows into the Kootenay River, which passes through Montana and Idaho before returning to B.C. 

Selenium occurs naturally in rocks in the Elk Valley. But when massive piles of waste rock from the mines are exposed to rain and snowmelt, the contaminant is released into the water, eventually flowing into nearby rivers and creeks.

Today selenium levels in some areas downstream of the mines are many times higher than what’s considered safe for fish and other aquatic life. In fish, the contaminant can impede reproduction and cause deformities such as curved spines, misshapen skulls and abnormal gills. 

Since sending that first letter more than a decade ago, Ktunaxa Nation has written repeatedly to top diplomats in Canada and the U.S. urging them to involve the International Joint Commission in what has become a contentious issue. The commission was created under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to study and recommend solutions to intractable disputes and many saw it as the natural venue to address the pollution stemming from Teck’s coal mines.

Not everyone agreed. The coal mines are a major employer in the Elk Valley and a significant contributor to provincial GDP and both B.C. and Teck had been lobbying federal officials to quash any potential inquiry by the Canada-U.S. body, internal records obtained by Ktunaxa Nation last year revealed.

Pollution from Teck’s mines flow through the Elk Valley into the Kootenay River, which passes through Montana and Idaho before returning to B.C. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

In March, the issues in the Elk-Kootenay watershed hit the national stage when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joseph Biden issued a joint statement saying the two countries would “reach an agreement in principle by this summer to reduce and mitigate the impacts of water pollution in the Elk-Kootenay watershed in partnership with Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples.” The intent, they said, is “to protect the people and species that depend on this vital river system.”

Just a few months later, Ktunaxa Nation Council submitted a proposal to the Canadian and U.S. governments for a two-pronged approach to addressing the widespread contamination: an International Joint Commission inquiry and a Ktunaxa-federal action plan.

There’s a need for the commission “to conduct an independent, transparent and accountable scientific assessment of pollution in the watershed and perform ongoing monitoring,” the Ktunaxa Nation Council, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, wrote in a joint Ktunaxa Nation press release this month.

The action plan, in the meantime, would set the stage for more immediate measures to restore the rivers affected by Teck’s mines.

B.C. signals support for limited involvement by international commission over Teck coal pollution dispute

In a statement to The Narwhal this week, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said “B.C. has proposed a role for the International Joint Commission to act as a neutral third party — bringing representatives together to share progress, validate issues and facts and gather information in a way that is respectful and inclusive of Indigenous Knowledge.”

But the B.C. government says it wants to limit the scope of any inquiry to prevent duplicating scientific reviews it says it’s already doing.

“Robust scientific assessments and comprehensive environmental monitoring already exist for the B.C. portion of the watershed. The province is not supportive of any scientific study that seeks to duplicate this work and divert provincial resources from our planned and ongoing initiatives,” the ministry spokesperson said.

“Our support is contingent on the Canadian and U.S. governments accepting our proposals for a role of the [International Joint Commission] to act as a neutral convener,” it said, adding that any transboundary process must “respect regulatory authority.” The province is, however, open to adjusting its monitoring and regulatory efforts if “any significant and relevant gaps” are identified in its existing programs, the statement said.

U.S. scientists are undertaking studies in the Koocanusa Reservoir and further downstream to better understand the impacts of selenium and other contaminants from Teck’s mines. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

The B.C. government is working with Ktunaxa Nation to set a new selenium standard for Lake Koocanusa, a transboundary reservoir downstream of the mines, that will inform updates to the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan and ultimately Teck’s waste discharge permits.

But for years, the nation and conservation organizations have raised concerns about the gaps in B.C.’s regulatory regime that have allowed the mine pollution to persist even as Teck’s operations have been repeatedly allowed to expand, as well as a lack of transparency around the extent of the contamination and potential harms.

“One of the key values of the [International Joint Commission] is its well-established track record as a neutral third part that is unencumbered by individual government or industry interests when it comes to stewardship of transboundary watersheds,” Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair Kathryn Teneese said in a statement to The Narwhal.

“The main outcomes we need to achieve are improving water quality and protecting ʔa·kxam̓is̓ is q̓api qapsin (all living things), including Ktunaxa cultural practice of sukiⱡ ʔiknaⱡa (eating good),” Teneese said. “We know the current regulatory regime is not achieving these important outcomes and we need to tighten things up, learn from past mistakes, improve existing measures and address any gaps.”

“While we appreciate that B.C. is now welcome to [International Joint Commission] involvement and has provided its views via a proposal, the final [International Joint Commission] reference is a transboundary matter decided at the federal level, with deep engagement with Ktunaxa,” she said.

“As stewards of this place for more than 10,000 years, there can be no solutions or assessment of this watershed without deep and meaningful partnership with the Ktunaxa ʔaqⱡsmaknik,” Teneese said in the joint press release this month.

Ktunaxa people have stewarded these lands and waters for millennia. After decades of decision-making that left lasting scars, the nation says there is no path forward without meaningful partnership. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Randal Macnair, the Elk Valley conservation coordinator with the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight and a former mayor of the largest Elk Valley community, told The Narwhal the “two-pronged approach the Ktunaxa are taking is exactly the sort of thing that needs to happen.”

“If the provincial government and the federal government are really committed to reconciliation, what happens with this situation will be telling,” he said.

In a statement a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said the federal government “is strongly committed to protecting freshwater resources, including in the Elk Valley.”

Discussions are ongoing between government officials and Indigenous nations and tribes towards reaching an agreement to address the Elk-Kootenay watershed, the statement said.

“We are committed to these ongoing efforts to work together to find an appropriate path forward to ensure the health of the watershed,” it said.

Pollution levels remain much higher than levels safe for aquatic life, despite heavy investment in treatment

The task ahead — to stem the flow of pollution from the Elk Valley mines — is immense. Teck has already invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment and other measures to address the contamination. Despite some initial issues, the treatment plants are removing between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium from the water they treat, according to the company.

But the majority of both selenium and nitrate pollution from the mines still flows downstream without any treatment at all, according to information on a new provincial website, called the Elk Valley Water Quality Hub.

And while average monthly selenium levels in the Fording and Elk rivers downstream of Teck’s mines fell mostly within the limits outlined in the company’s permits during the first quarter of this year, those limits are between nine and 30 times higher than the levels considered safe for aquatic life.

Data on the province’s Elk Valley Water Quality Hub shows Teck’s water treatment facilities are removing only a portion of selenium pollution. Graph: Government of British Columbia

In a statement to The Narwhal, Chris Stannell, Teck’s public relations manager, said the company is “making significant progress” on water quality issues in the region.

“Monitoring shows selenium concentrations have stabilized and are reducing downstream of treatment,” he said, adding there plans to expand treatment capacity over the next five years.

But Erin Sexton, a senior research scientist with the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake biological research station, warned one of the key challenges with understanding the impacts of the mine pollution in the Elk-Kootenay river system is that the data and modelling Teck relies on to state that its treatment plants are working isn’t available for independent, third party review.

“Let’s put in place a watershed board and bring all that data to the table and let a third party evaluate whether or not that assessment is actually accurate,” she said.

There are signs downstream that the problem persists — selenium levels in the tissue of multiple fish species are increasing, Sexton said.

For years the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho has been working to restore endangered white sturgeon populations. Now there are concerns that mine pollution is yet another threat this long-lived fish must contend with. Photos: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Some 100 kilometres from the mines, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is concerned about the impacts to endangered white sturgeon and burbot populations the tribe has spent years trying to rebuild.

“We see our fish populations declining despite our own hatchery efforts to sustain them,” Gary Aitken Jr., the tribe’s vice chairman, said in the joint Ktunaxa Nation press release. “We are watching our river suffer as the regulators stand by and watch.”

“There is an immediate need for action to begin restoring these waters that are so central to the Ktunaxa people,” Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Chairman Tom McDonald said in the joint release. “Now all we need is for Canada and the U.S. to sign onto the Ktunaxa proposal so we can get to work.”

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When the news broke this week that former B.C. premier John Horgan was taking on a new role with one of the most influential mining companies in the country, it inadvertently shone a spotlight on one of the province’s sorest spots: coal mining in the Elk Valley. 

It’s a strangely quiet story in B.C., given its Hollywood-level proportions: huge mountains are shaved down to nubs in bustling around-the-clock coal operations that go on unabated, 365 days a year. Enormous piles of waste rock — left exposed to rain and snow and wind all year long — send a constant trickle of contaminants throughout the watershed and into meandering rivers and creeks known for their prized trout populations. Starting in 2014, scientists warned the pollution, especially selenium contamination, could become extremely dangerous for fish and birds. And then fishermen began pulling severely deformed trout out of the rivers. 

But it gets much worse. Because the leaching is so difficult to control, selenium pollution is now a problem all throughout the watershed and even in the bodies of water that cross the B.C.-Montana border. You don’t have to watch Yellowstone to imagine how the good people of Montana feel about an uncontrolled stream of selenium contaminating their waters and poisoning their fish. 

Experts warn selenium could be a problem in the valley for hundreds or even a thousand years, especially given the colossal size of waste piles.

In the meantime, warnings issued by scientists about the danger of letting selenium build up in the ecosystem appear to be playing out, with fish populations collapsing in rivers immediately downstream of the mines. 

It’s bad enough the pollution in the Elk Valley, a place some British Columbians haven’t even heard of, was a focus of talks between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden during the U.S. leader’s first presidential visit to Canada two weeks ago. 

These are big problems. Monumental, even. So, it’s a wonder to read Horgan’s recent words as he takes up his new mantle on the board of Elk Valley Resources, a planned spinoff from Teck Resources to manage the company’s four coal mines in the valley (assuming a new takeover proposal doesn’t get off the ground). 

“I’ve got other things that I am going to be working on that may be more to the taste of those who would kick up some dust, but the people that are kicking up dust, oftentimes, kick it up for the sake of kicking it up,” Horgan told The Globe and Mail.

“I don’t have a lot of time any more, none in fact, for public comment on my worldview, or what I am doing with my time. I don’t want to be snippy about it, but there are others that are making policy decisions.” The article also mentions Horgan said he will work to ensure the company is respecting its obligations to Indigenous communities and the environment as well as mine workers and shareholders.

Horgan’s words are perturbing for those who were asking for greater accountability for Teck’s coal mines during the time he was, in fact, making policy decisions. That time, it’s important to remember, extended to mere months ago. 

Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle of the Yaq̓itʔa·knuqⱡiʾit (Tobacco Plains Indian Band) told The Narwhal in late 2021 that “prior to the mines, people could drink out of the rivers.” But not anymore.

“Nobody will eat fish out of there because of the contaminants, which is sad,” she said. “That was a huge part of our history.”

“The mines have put some work into fixing the selenium problem. But it’s not enough. There needs to be stronger environmental regulations at the end of the day, and accountability — so raise the bar and if you don’t meet it, you’re done,” she said.

Horgan did not respond to a request for comment from The Narwhal by time of publication. 

Teck Resources owns and operates a number of metallurgical coal mines in the region that provide coal for use in steelmaking. Photo: Callum Gunn

Selenium pollution in Elk Valley increased during John Horgan’s premiership

During Horgan’s tenure, the Elk Valley saw an increase in selenium levels without any meaningful pushback from the province on Teck’s permits to operate. Although B.C.’s water quality guidelines say selenium levels must remain below two parts per billion to safeguard aquatic life, selenium levels in waterways across the valley are as high as 100, 200 and even 500 parts per billion.

The mines are permitted under a flexible regulatory arrangement called the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan that hoped to see selenium levels stabilized by 2023 and decreasing by 2030. 

Instead, selenium levels in waterways all across the Elk Valley continue to increase despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested by Teck for more than a decade into water treatment plants that have struggled to successfully remove selenium and struggled to keep up with the pure volume of selenium. There is still no credible plan in place to handle the ever-increasing selenium levels that are now creeping up in connected waterways as far away as Idaho. 

Yet this is despite the fact that selenium levels have become so high, they have threatened the safety of drinking water for communities in the Elk Valley, and both municipal and private wells in the region have at times been rendered unsafe for human consumption. 

And, although some federal fines have been issued for Teck’s pollution, Ottawa is limited in its ability to respond because Canada lacks federal regulations for coal mining effluent. Under Horgan’s watch, B.C. fought against the introduction of such rules because they would negatively impact industry. 

Rather than causing a reckoning for Teck, the company forged ahead with plans to expand its largest mine in the region.

How pollution from Canadian coal mines threatens the fish at the heart of communities from B.C. to Idaho

Unpacking Horgan’s remarks about Teck’s metallurgical coal operations

In Horgan’s brief remarks to The Globe, he also suggested critics who might “kick up some dust” at his new role would be doing so under a false pretense, because he won’t be working for thermal coal but rather metallurgical coal, used to make steel. In doing so, Horgan is already falling into a false frame that overlooks the fact that Teck’s Elk Valley operations are an incredible source of carbon emissions.

According to Teck’s own disclosures, the company’s operational emissions in 2022 are estimated to be 2.8 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That’s the same as 6.4 million barrels of oil consumed or the annual emissions from seven natural gas power plants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas calculator.

But the lion’s share of Teck’s emissions come from the use of Teck’s steelmaking coal around the globe. According to Teck, based on the company’s 2022 sales, indirect emissions amounted to approximately 65 megatonnes, or the equivalent of more than 150 million barrels of oil or the annual emissions from 163 gas power plants.

It’s important to remember that Teck Resources is one of the most influential players in B.C.’s corporate-political landscape. For years before corporate and union political donations were banned in 2017, Teck consistently was one of B.C.’s top donors to political parties, giving out more than $1.5 million to the BC Liberals (now BC United) between 2008 and 2017. Teck donated $60,000 to the B.C. NDP, $50,000 of which came days before the 2017 election that saw the NDP take power. 

In the years since corporate political donations were outlawed, Teck has registered 26 lobbyists who since 2020 have attempted to influence policy on a range of issues including climate policy, coal mining regulations and biodiversity. Between July 18, 2017, the day Horgan became B.C.’s premier, and Nov. 18, 2022, the day he stepped down, Teck registered 167 lobbying reports, including 30 meetings or communications directly with the office of the premier. 

Horgan’s move is just the latest sign of Teck’s enormous clout. 

While the former premier may not welcome outside commentary or wish to hear from those inclined to kick up dust about selenium in the Elk Valley, it seems less-than-genuine for Horgan to simply throw up his hands at a problem that festered and grew under his leadership.

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Canada’s parliamentary environment watchdog is being urged to investigate whether years of alleged negligence by federal officials have allowed pollution from coal mines to wipe out species of fish and poison drinking water in B.C.’s Elk Valley.

The calls for the new federal investigation follow repeated pleas from U.S. government officials based on two decades of scientific evidence about how selenium and other pollutants have flowed into cross-border waterways from Teck Resources coal mines.

A team from the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre compiled the evidence in a report sent to the federal environment commissioner, Jerry De Marco, who works in the office of the federal auditor general, Karen Hogan.

“We submit that no issue of sustainable development could be more significant than the government’s longstanding failure to use the Fisheries Act and other federal powers to address catastrophic coal mine pollution in the Elk Valley,” the report says.

“This regulatory failure has directly contributed to one of the most serious and permanent environmental disasters in Canadian history.” 

Law students Jesse Langelier, Russell Chiong and Ellen Campbell drafted the report under the supervision of the centre’s legal director Calvin Sandborn and sent it on behalf of conservation group, Wildsight.

It was not immediately clear how soon the commissioner would be able to review the report. Investigations in the commissioner’s office often take months of preparations before getting underway and years to complete.

There is a growing urgency to find out why the federal and provincial governments have not cracked down on pollution from the mines because several new coal mine proposals for the Elk Valley are in different stages of review by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office, Sandborn said.

Coal mining is big business in the B.C. Rockies. It could get bigger if these projects are approved

The report also questioned whether Canada was violating its international obligations under the Boundary Waters Treaty, signed in 1909. 

“The governments of Montana, Idaho and the United States have long complained about Canada’s remarkable failure to control the pollution now poisoning American waters and fish downstream from the Elk Valley coal mines,” said the centre’s report. “Those governments are now desperately attempting more definitive action to prompt Canada to address its international obligations — and to stop polluting its neighbour.”

The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office told The Narwhal in an email that the process to assess three new coal mines will look at water quality, the effects on fish, “cumulative effects from existing and proposed projects” and mitigation of adverse effects.

But, if approved, the new mines could increase pollution from the mountains of waste rock that leach selenium, calcite and other pollutants, the report warned.

“Such ongoing expansion will likely lock in higher long-term pollution levels for generations to come,” says the University of Victoria report.

A tale of two provinces: how coal mining plowed ahead in the B.C. Rockies while Alberta hit the brakes

The centre’s report singled out officials from two federal departments, Environment and Climate Change Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, alleging that their officials failed to wield their powers under existing environmental laws and instead deferred to the B.C. government. This despite a blistering 2016 report from then provincial auditor general Carol Bellringer who noted that, after 20 years of tracking dramatic annual increases of selenium in the watershed around the mines, the province took no substantive action.

Bellringer’s report said provincial compliance and enforcement of mining rules were deficient and “inadequate to protect the province from significant environmental risks.” But, five years later, Elk Valley provincial mine pollution discharge permits continue to set levels that far exceed B.C.’s Water Quality Guidelines for aquatic species, wildlife and drinking water.

The province, together with the Ktunaxa Nation Council and other agencies, has come up with the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, which, the province says, “provides a long-term strategy to stabilize and reduce concentrations of mine constituents in the watershed.” Under the Environmental Management Act, Teck must meet B.C. selenium water quality guidelines in Lake Koocanusa, which straddles the border, according to a ministry statement.

But those measures are grossly inadequate, says the University of Victoria report, pointing to increasing selenium levels and Canada’s refusal to at least match selenium standards across the border in the United States.

As mining waste leaches into B.C. waters, experts worry new rules will be too little, too late

Senators from the U.S. want the Elk Valley pollution problem referred to the International Joint Commission and say Canada appears to be violating the Boundary Waters Treaty. In a surprising twist, Canadian commissioners have also been accused by their U.S. counterparts of suppressing scientific information on the Elk Valley selenium discharges.

When asked about its environmental oversight of Teck, a spokesperson for the B.C. Environment Ministry said Teck has recently been subject to “strengthened investigations and compliance requirements” and, over several years, has been fined $720,000 for environmental violations.

More notably, in March, after the federal government finally took action over the persistent pollution, Teck was fined $60 million for violations that occurred in 2012. However, as part of the plea bargain, the Crown dropped approved charges for pollution that occurred from 2009-2011 and from 2013-2019.

“A question arises: were charges long withheld as part of some agreement with the company and the province to clean up the selenium problems?” the report asks.

“If so, just where is that effective cleanup?”

Teck told The Narwhal in a statement that  the company has made significant progress in implementing the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan and water treatment facilities now in operation are removing almost all selenium, with more plants planned.

“We expect to have capacity to treat up to 54 million litres of water per day later this year — nearly three times our 2020 treatment capacity,” said spokesperson Dale Steeves.

“We have spent more than $1 billion so far to implement the Elk Valley Water Quality plan. Between now and 2024 we plan to invest up to a further $655 million in work to protect the watershed,” he said.

However, the Environmental Law Centre report says the water treatment plants have not lived up to company promises, some of the proposed plants are based on unproven technology and there is no plan to treat the water in perpetuity.

“Worse, there continues to be an enormous shortfall — over $500 million in company security/bonding to protect taxpayers from liability,” it says.

Westslope cutthroat trout is listed as a species of concern under the Species at Risk Act. In fish, selenium poisoning can cause deformities and reproductive failure. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

The history of concerns about pollution from the coal mines stretches back to 1995 when studies first indicated that selenium leaching from waste surrounding the coal mines was harming fish in waterways such as the Upper Fording River.

Westslope cutthroat trout, a species of special concern under Canada’s Species At Risk Act, are now on the verge of extirpation. As the trout are a sentinel species, it is an indication that the entire Elk Valley watershed is in deep trouble, says the Environmental Law Centre report.

“The population is likely doomed, yet this outcome was long predicted,” it says 

Adult population counts of the fish fell from 1,573 in 2017 to 104 in 2019, according to a recent report released by Teck.

However, despite studies showing selenium causes deformities and reproductive problems in fish, Teck spokesman Steeves said preliminary findings of a team of independent experts, put together by the company, indicate selenium was not a primary contributor to the decline.

“Teck is working collaboratively with government and Ktunaxa Nation Council to develop a westslope cutthroat trout recovery plan,” he said.

The Ktunaxa Nation, in a community impact statement made during the recent Fisheries Act Teck prosecution, said the pollution is alienating Ktunaxa people from their culture.

“Knowing that the fish habitat is impacted by these polluted waters leads to concern for the safety of the fish as well as for Ktunaxa consuming them. The result is an alienation of our people from our lands, waters and cultural practices,” it says.

The pollution also affects drinking water and seven wells have been found to have selenium levels that exceed guidelines. Teck is providing bottled water to those who rely on the wells and the company paid for a new well for the District of Sparwood after selenium levels exceeded drinking water guidelines.

But many British Columbians remain unaware of the crisis in the rivers and lakes around the Elk Valley because, unlike an oil spill or melting glaciers, selenium is an invisible crisis, said Randal Macnair, Wildsight’s Elk Valley conservation coordinator.

“The water in the Elk Valley flows through and looks great, but the selenium levels keep marching up. Sparwood had to replace a well, people are on bottled water, but it’s out-of-sight out-of-mind and that’s why reports like this are so important,” Macnair said.

Sandborn agrees that most people are unaware that a Canadian company is poisoning fish and polluting rivers that run into the United States and are usually shocked to discover that the government is taking so little action.

One of the big questions is why the law is not being enforced, Sandborn said.

“There are powerful forces at play. There’s a lot of money and jobs at play and there is a lack of taking into account the values that are being destroyed. It’s very short-term thinking,” he said.

Decisions on whether to conduct audits or inquiries into whether government programs are effective are made by the Office of the Auditor General and one consideration is the significance of the issue, the office told The Narwhal in an email.

Reports from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development go to a parliamentary committee and “it is through the committee hearings process that Parliament holds government to account,” it said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada did not respond to questions before deadline.

Updated at 10 p.m. PT on July 16, 2021, to remove an incorrect reference that the Environmental Law Centre report referred to pollution resulting in the elimination of insect populations and to clarify that the report was recommending that Canada should at least match U.S. selenium standards.

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Teck Coal was ordered to pay a record $60 million fine this year for polluting waterways in the Elk Valley, but despite the penalty, contaminants continue to leach from piles of waste rock at the company’s mines — and the clock is ticking on new federal regulations that observers say are long overdue.

“Leadership is desperately needed in this watershed from the Canadian federal government,” said Erin Sexton, a University of Montana biologist.

The Elk Valley may have “one of the worst selenium contamination issues, I would say, even globally,” she said. And yet, “over the last decade and a half, there’s been a notable lack of regulatory response in this watershed to the water quality issues.”

New regulations are on the way,  but there is concern they won’t be strong enough to address the legacy of pollution from more than a century of coal mining in the Elk Valley.

The coal mining operations fall within the territory of the Ktunaxa Nation, which in March called for there to be “an appropriate and achievable plan in place to ensure that Teck Coal Limited meets water quality limits and addresses impacts to wuʔu (the water) and ʔa·kxamis ̓qapi qapsin (All Living Things).”

With several new coal projects proposed in the region, including a Teck mine expansion, experts say swift and strong measures are needed to ensure the region’s pollution problems don’t get worse.

If the federal government’s draft regulations are any indication, Sexton said, the changes could be “a lot too little and a lot too late.”

Her comments come in the lead up to a bilateral Canada-U.S. meeting this week focused on cross-border water issues. Transboundary mining will be on the agenda in the gathering between Global Affairs Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Selenium pollution a persistent challenge in the Elk Valley

Selenium, which leaches from the mines’ waste rock piles, is toxic to aquatic life at elevated levels. Species of mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies — food for fish — have already been lost, Sexton said. In fish, selenium poisoning can cause deformities and reproductive failure. It’s a pressing concern for the westslope cutthroat trout, which is listed as a species of concern under the Species at Risk Act.

Teck has so far invested roughly $1 billion in water treatment facilities and other measures to address water pollution in the Elk Valley. Currently, selenium is removed from up to 27.5 million litres of water a day at two treatment facilities, spokesperson Chris Stannell said in a statement to The Narwhal. 

With additional treatment facilities being constructed, the company is aiming to be able to treat more than 54 million litres of water a day by the end of this year and expects to see “significant reductions in selenium and nitrate concentrations throughout the watershed as a result,” Stannell said.

Westslope cutthroat trout is listed as a species of concern under the Species at Risk Act. In fish, selenium poisoning can cause deformities and reproductive failure. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

But data from monitoring stations in both the Elk River and Lake Koocanusa, a reservoir that crosses the Canada-U.S. border, shows selenium concentrations have increased despite these efforts, according to Lars Sander-Green, a mining analyst with the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight.

“More mining is more waste rock and more waste rock is more water pollution,” Sander-Green said. 

“Teck is planning and has built some small treatment plants but so far they’ve been increasing mining faster than they’ve been bringing treatment into place,” he said. 

At this point, Sander-Green said he estimates that Teck is able to remove about 10 per cent of the total selenium pollution that flows downstream of its mines. 

Teck did not answer questions about what percentage of its mining wastewater is treated to remove selenium.

Federal oversight of coal mining ‘desperately needed’ in Elk Valley

Teck’s coal mines are subject to the Fisheries Act, which prohibits the release of a “deleterious substance” in fish-bearing water. The company’s recent $60 million fine, for example, stemmed from an investigation that found “deposits of waste rock from the company’s operations had leached deleterious substances, selenium and calcite, into the upper Fording River and its tributaries,” according to an Environment and Climate Change Canada summary of the case.

However, there’s been a longstanding gap when it comes to how coal mining is governed under the Fisheries Act because there aren’t any regulations specific to the coal industry.

“There are regulations for paper mills, for example, or metal mines, but not for coal mining,” Dan Cheater, a lawyer with Ecojustice, said.

Regulations governing effluent from metal mines have been in place for more than four decades and updated twice in the intervening years. But it wasn’t until 2017 that Environment and Climate Change Canada began working on regulations for coal mining effluent — despite its responsibility to protect fish and fish habitat under the Fisheries Act and the federal government’s commitments under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to not pollute transboundary waterways. 

(Pollution from the Elk Valley coal mines has long been a source of contention between Canada and the U.S. as contaminants from Teck’s mines eventually flow into Lake Koocanusa, a reservoir that straddles the B.C.-Montana border.)

In a statement, Stannell said: “Teck supports the development of regulations that are informed by a science-based approach, protective of aquatic life, and considerate of available treatment technologies.”

Those with long-standing conservation concerns, including Sexton, welcome the prospect of new regulations.

“I am 100 per cent in support of federal oversight in this watershed, I think it’s desperately needed,” she said.

“Not only are we well beyond what’s considered protective of fish and aquatic life in this watershed, we’re actually looking at expanding those impacts with the Fording River mine expansion and the three new coal mines that are proposed in the Elk Valley.” 

As for Cheater, he said he’s “hopeful that with these regulations, we’ll start seeing some progress.”

University of Montana biologist Erin Sexton takes a water sample in the Koocanusa Reservoir as part of an independent water testing program. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Draft coal mining effluent regulations have been watered down

But there is reason to be wary.

“One thing that we’ve seen as new materials are being released by the federal government is there is a watering down of what the regulations were originally set to do that I think is disappointing,” Cheater said. 

Initially, Cheater said, the proposal included the ability to adjust contaminant limits based on fish health and concentrations in fish tissue samples. That was subsequently changed to a “strict limit” that applied to new mines and expansions.

“Now we’re seeing an exception carved out for the Elk Valley specifically,” he said.

Sander-Green called it “a Teck-sized hole in the regulations — there’s a whole set of regulations, that’s just for Teck, that’s much, much weaker, allows a lot more pollution than it would for a mine in Alberta or Nova Scotia.”

An Environment and Climate Change technical briefing document from February 2020 shows the federal department proposed a “two-pronged approach” to the regulations: a general approach that applies to new and existing mines and an alternative approach that applies only to the existing coal mines in the Elk Valley.

The draft general regulations as proposed early last year would apply limits to the concentrations of selenium, nitrate and suspended solids in mine effluent from final discharge points, with slightly weaker standards for existing mines.

Selenium levels by the numbers

Regulations for selenium pollution vary widely in the U.S. and Canada. Teck has been given plenty of latitude by the B.C. government to exceed provincial standards, prompting observers to call for stringent new federal rules.

0.8

The parts per billion limit recently adopted by U.S. agencies for Lake Koocanusa, where average selenium levels are about one part per billion.

2

B.C.’s general water quality guidelines currently recommend selenium levels be kept within two parts per billion to protect aquatic life.

63

Teck’s provincial permit allows selenium levels in rivers and creeks downstream of the company’s mines to far exceed the provincial water quality guideline. For instance, one of its Fording River order stations has a limit of 63 parts per billion.

Provincial regulations not enough to protect fish from coal mine pollution

Teck’s coal mines are already regulated by a provincial permit, which sets limits on how much of a contaminant, such as selenium, the mines can release into the environment — but Sander-Green said the limits are too high and Teck has too often failed to meet them. 

For example, B.C. government inspection records for one of Teck’s Fording River order stations, where water quality is regularly monitored, show average selenium levels in March 2020 measured 65.7 parts per billion and averaged 67.9 parts per billion in December. That’s higher than the allowable permit threshold of 63 parts per billion.

The company is also required to ensure selenium concentrations at one of its Fording River compliance points, where mine effluent is monitored, do not exceed a monthly average of 90 parts per billion. But inspection records show average selenium concentrations were 112 parts per billion in October 2020, 102.5 parts per billion in November, and 124 parts per billion in December.

The company could face new administrative penalties from the province for failing to meet the requirements of its permit, but according to Stannell those exceedances were unusual occurrences. 

“In 2020, water quality at order stations met permit limits 99 per cent of the time and at compliance points 93 per cent of the time,” he said. “We expect to further improve on this performance as additional water treatment comes online this year.”

An aerial view of a Rocky Mountain coal mine in B.C.’s Elk Valley near the B.C.-Alberta border. Photo: Callum Gunn

Observers say draft federal regulations aren’t strong enough to address Elk Valley pollution woes

Under the draft federal regulations, Teck’s existing mines would be required to meet baseline pollution limits set two and three years after the regulations are enacted. The company would then be required to reduce concentrations of selenium in the environment relative to that baseline in subsequent years. 

For instance, based on the February 2020 draft, the company would have to reduce monthly average selenium concentrations at federal compliance points by 36 per cent from the baseline, or to 40 parts per billion, whichever is lower, 16 years after the regulations are enacted.

Existing mines subject to the general regulations, meanwhile, would be required to meet a monthly average selenium limit of 10 parts per billion for effluent that is collected and released at specific outflow locations. New mines would face a limit of 5 parts per billion.

Four companies are proposing new coal mines in the Kootenay Rockies. Conservationists fear increased pollution in the region if they are approved. Map: Carol Linnitt

Sander-Green worries that “the proposed regulations would create a perverse incentive for Teck to do less to control their pollution in the coming years.” 

“It’s actually in Teck’s interest to keep pollution levels as high as possible until three years after these regulations come into force, because their pollution limits for the rest of the life of the mine would be based on pollution levels in the years after the regulations come into force,” he explained in an email to The Narwhal.

While the February 2020 draft regulations would eventually set a minimum requirement that monthly selenium averages don’t exceed 40 parts per billion, Sexton noted that’s still 20 times higher than the selenium concentration that’s considered protective of aquatic life.

In a statement to The Narwhal, Samantha Bayard, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said “the proposed regulatory rules for existing coal mines in B.C.’s Elk Valley take into account the unique circumstances in the region.”

Coal mining in the area has “resulted in vast mine waste rock piles that often overprint water bodies, which make it impractical for existing mines to collect all of the mine effluent and apply the same effluent quality standards that can be achieved by newer facilities,” she said.

But Sexton argued the existing Elk Valley mines “should be held to the highest standard because according to the science this is the watershed that’s most at risk.”

Experts are increasingly worried by the high levels of selenium found in rivers near B.C.’s scenic Elk Valley, which is a great risk to aquatic life. The province has yet to finalize specific selenium pollution limits. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

At this point, selenium levels in the Elk and Fording rivers are “orders of magnitude” higher than what is safe for fish and other aquatic life, she said.

The Narwhal asked Environment and Climate Change Canada when the regulations would be finalized. In a statement, Bayard said that “given the importance of these regulations, we are taking the time to get them right. This will include extensive consultations with industry, Indigenous groups, environmental non-governmental organizations, and provinces.”

The timeline is a concern for Sander-Green, who noted any new coal mines built in the next few years may only be subject to the weaker standards for existing mines. According to the February 2020 technical briefing document, the draft regulations define new mines as mines that start operating three years after the regulations are enacted.

Sander-Green said any further delay is unreasonable. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t have had these regulations in place years ago,” he said.

‘Short-term solutions to long-term problems’

Even with new regulations forthcoming, there are concerns on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border about the long-term implications of continued coal mining in the Elk Valley.

While Teck is making considerable investments in water treatment, Sander-Green is concerned it won’t be a viable solution over the course of the decades or centuries to come. 

“What these regulations should be doing is banning perpetual water treatment and prohibiting mines that will leave behind toxic pollution problems that will last beyond the lifetime of the mine,” he said.

It’s a concern Sexton — who called the water treatment facilities “short-term solutions to very, very long-term problems”— shares.

Robert Sisson, a U.S. commissioner on the International Joint Commission (IJC), recognizes the major investments Teck has made in water treatment facilities, including saturated rock fill technology. 

But “I’d like to make sure that we’re also discussing Plan B and Plan C, in the event [the saturated rock fill technology] does not work as intended or it’s just simply not enough to do the job that we need to protect the waters,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

Sisson said a bi-national watershed body that brings all interested groups and experts together could be helpful for finding a solution to the long-term pollution challenges in the Elk Valley.

“The IJC would be a good option, but there are others out there,” he said.

Under the Boundary Waters Treaty, the International Joint Commission has the power to investigate and recommend solutions to transboundary water disputes referred to it by the U.S. and Canadian governments.

The commission has alerted both governments to the selenium issues in the Elk Valley watershed, but has so far not been asked to intervene in the situation.

In the meantime, selenium and other contaminants continue to leach from piles of waste rock at the mines. 

With new projects and mine expansions being proposed, Sexton said she wants to see a moratorium on any new or expanded mines in the Elk Valley until the existing pollution problems are addressed.

“We have clear evidence now that this watershed is in trouble,” she said. So, “the first thing you do is try to stop the bleeding.” 

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In the face of widespread public backlash, the Alberta government agreed to rethink its plan to open parts of the Rocky Mountains and foothills to open-pit coal mining — but it’s a different story just across the provincial border, where an already massive industry could get bigger. 

Coal is British Columbia’s most valuable mined commodity: the provincial government forecast production to be worth almost $4 billion in 2020. Eighty-three per cent of that production took place in the Kootenay Rockies, where Teck Resources operates four metallurgical coal mines.

Though Teck is a major employer and economic contributor in the region, its mines are also a persistent source of selenium pollution. Some conservationists fear the problem could worsen if any of the four proposed coal mines in the area are built.

Elevated levels of selenium can cause deformities and reproductive failure in fish. The adult population of a trout species downstream of Teck’s mines recently saw its numbers fall 93 per cent. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation. 

Farther north, in the foothills of the Rockies in the Peace region, Conuma Coal Resources operates the province’s other three metallurgical coal mines (metallurgical coal is used in the steelmaking process). Decades of industrial development in the area has taken a toll on wildlife and a proposed mine is prompting concerns about increased risk to endangered caribou.

Here’s what you need to know about the five proposed coal projects in B.C.’s Rockies.

Teck’s proposed mine involves the highest annual coal production  

Teck has put forward a proposal to mine metallurgical coal from Castle Mountain, just south of the company’s existing Fording River operations. If the project is approved, Teck expects all coal processed at Fording River — 10 million tonnes a year — would come from the Castle Mountain mine by 2030, extending the life of the Fording River operations by several decades, according to the initial project description.  

The project is in the early engagement stage of a coordinated provincial and federal assessment process and Teck is now working on a detailed project description.

Chris Stannell, Teck’s public relations manager, said in a statement to The Narwhal that the company’s Fording River operation employs about 1,400 people and the project would “provide for continuing socioeconomic benefits” for the region. 

But in public comments, numerous concerns have been raised about impacts on air quality, increased selenium and nitrate contamination of local waterways, greenhouse gas emissions, impacts on First Nations’ use of the land, the loss of biodiversity and more.

Four companies are proposing new coal mines in the Kootenay Rockies. Conservationists fear increased pollution in the region if they are approved. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Teck is building additional water treatment plants to reduce the amount of selenium pollution from its existing mines and Stannell said the company would develop a plan to mitigate water quality impacts from the extension project. But Lars Sander-Green, mining lead with the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight, questioned the long-term feasibility of the company’s plan and said Teck should focus on addressing selenium pollution from its existing mines. 

Sander-Green also noted concerns about impacts on local bighorn sheep, adding that the mining project “would be basically taking down a mountain over the next four to five decades.” 

Bighorn sheep in the Elk Valley east of the Elk River “winter at high elevation on south- and west-facing windswept, sunbaked slopes,” Kim Poole, a wildlife biologist at Aurora Wildlife Research and the main author of the Kootenay region bighorn sheep management plan, told The Narwhal.

Teck Resources already operates four metallurgical coal mines in the Rockies using methods that have completely changed the landscape of the mountains, as seen here. Photo: Callum Gunn

There’s very little snow in these high elevation grassland areas, which means the sheep are able to forage in the winter, he said. But these winter ranges are limited.

Poole said Teck’s reclamation of mined areas over the past few decades has helped bolster the sheep population, but the company can’t reclaim high elevation ranges once the mountaintop has been removed

The long-term implications for the sheep aren’t clear, Poole said. 

It “may not have a great impact at the population level, but it probably will have some impact at the more local sub-population level,” he said. 

Michel Coal Project environmental assessment application expected soon 

North Coal Limited, a Canadian subsidiary of the Australian company North Coal Pty Ltd., is proposing the Michel Coal Project, a mine in the Crowsnest coalfield, about 15 kilometres southeast of Sparwood. If the project is approved, it would produce between 2.3 million and four million tonnes of raw coal over a 30-year mine life.

As with other existing and proposed coal mines in the Elk Valley, water pollution is a key concern for local conservationists. 

“The current cumulative water quality impacts of the existing Elk Valley coal mines clearly preclude any additional mines within the watershed,” Wildsight wrote in public comments in August 2019.

A river near B.C.’s scenic Elk Valley where Teck’s coal mines have led to a decades-long selenium pollution problem. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Patty Vadnais, North Coal’s manager of social responsibility and external relations, said in a statement that the project “is designed to achieve the objectives of the Elk Valley water quality plan.” The company plans to “address selenium and other elements of concern at the source by using a unique combination of features that together will prevent contamination,” Vadnais said.

Alongside active water treatment facilities, North Coal says on its website that it would also employ passive water treatment options such as saturated rock fills — essentially using flooded pits filled with waste rock to remove selenium.

Teck has employed saturated rock fills as part of its water treatment plan and says it has seen success from its first facility. But Sander-Green said in an email to The Narwhal that Wildsight is “concerned that technology is new and unproven,” raising questions about who would manage and monitor the rock fills after a mine closes down.

In its 2019 comments, Wildsight also noted the importance of the Michel Creek watershed for wildlife: “Wide ranging carnivores like grizzly bears, wolverine and lynx rely on the health and function of the Michel Creek for connectivity.” 

The North Coal project is in the “pre-application” phase of the provincial review process. Vadnais said the company plans to submit its project application to the federal and provincial governments in the coming months. 

Bingay Main Coal Project stalled in 2018 

Vancouver-based Centermount Coal Ltd. has proposed the Bingay Main Coal Project about 21 kilometres north of Elkford. 

 If the project proceeds, it’s expected to operate for between 12 and 14 years and produce one million tonnes of coal per year.  

Elkford residents raised numerous concerns about the project, including its potential impacts on recreation, water and wildlife, The Free Press newspaper in Fernie reported in 2018.

In 2017, there were 250 public comments on issues including fish habitat, water quality, air quality, employment, community infrastructure, recreation and community wellbeing, with many expressing strong opposition to the project. 

According to a status update provided to The Narwhal by B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, the project is in the pre-application phase of the provincial assessment process and hasn’t been active since 2018. However, last year, the company asked the provincial environmental assessment office to keep the project in the process, according to a recent coal industry overview produced by the Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Low Carbon Innovation. 

Crown Mountain Coal Project plans to submit assessment application this year

Another Australian company’s Canadian subsidiary is behind the Crown Mountain Coal Project, a proposed open-pit mine about 12 kilometres northeast of Sparwood. NWP Coal Canada Ltd., which is owned by Jameson Resources Limited, expects the project would produce about 3.7 million tonnes of coal per year over a 16-year mine life.

Early public comments, collected in 2016 through the provincial environmental assessment process, raised concerns about impacts on grizzly bear, moose and sheep habitat, backcountry recreation and water quality.  

According to the provincial government’s recent coal industry overview, NWP Coal continued work last year on its environmental assessment application and conducted baseline environmental surveys.

The company is now in the process of drafting its application for an environmental assessment certificate and plans to submit this year, according to the status update from the provincial environment ministry. The project is also subject to the federal impact assessment process.

Water pollution, cumulative impacts key concerns as new mines considered for Elk Valley

Selenium pollution remains a pressing concern for all new mines under consideration in the Kootenay Rockies.

“Fundamentally, every new mine proposal on both sides of the Rockies is promising they’ll solve the water pollution problem with some combination of saturated rock fill, waste rock dump construction techniques, water treatment facilities, wetlands, source control, geotechnical covers and so on,” Sander-Green said in an email.

“But Teck has spent many hundreds of millions trying to deal with their water pollution problem and they haven’t made much progress and have missed many targets in their water treatment plans. It seems unlikely that a new company is going to be able to solve all these problems from day one,” he said.

Sander-Green said there is also growing unease around other water contaminants, including nitrate, nickel and calcite. 

In some areas of the Elk Valley, “the stream bed is basically turning into concrete from the calcium coming out of these mines,” Sander-Green said in an interview with The Narwhal.

Selenium pollution in the Kootenay Rockies is a danger to westslope cutthroat trout, which rely on stream beds in the Elk Valley. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

That’s a problem for westslope cutthroat trout, which lay their eggs in gravel nests, he explained. When the stream bed solidifies, these fish can’t properly protect their eggs.

Sander-Green said it’s crucial to consider the cumulative impacts of mining in the Elk Valley.

“What’s going to happen in 100 years? How are we going to deal with these problems?” he said. 

All four proposed projects fall within the traditional territory of Ktunaxa Nation. In a statement to The Narwhal, Kathryn Teneese, Chair of Ktunaxa Nation Council, said: “The Ktunaxa Nation, as the proper Title and Rights holder in Qukin ʔamakʔis, is deeply involved with industry and other governments in the review and decision making regarding existing and proposed coal mines and the rehabilitation of the land and waters.”

Glencore’s Sukunka mine proposal remains ‘on pause’

Glencore Canada’s proposed Sukunka Coal Mine would be located about 55 kilometres south of Chetwynd in Treaty 8 territory in northeast B.C., in a critical habitat of an endangered caribou herd.

If the project is approved, Glencore expects it to have a mine life of more than 20 years and to initially produce 1.5 million to two million tonnes of coal a year, with production eventually growing to six million tonnes a year.

West Moberly First Nations and conservation groups have raised concerns about the mine’s potential impact on the Quintette caribou herd.

Tim Burkhart, the B.C. program manager with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, said 

“the region has seen a massive change to the land base due to industrial disturbance.” 

“That’s pushed a lot of wide-ranging species and iconic species like caribou to the brink of extinction, and in some cases, has extirpated local populations of caribou,” he said. 

The Sukunka mine would fall “smack dab” in the middle of the Quintette caribou herd’s habitat, a population that’s already impacted by existing coal mines in the region, Burkhart explained.

Alongside the threat to caribou, Burkhart said there’s a growing problem with selenium pollution in the Peace region and there are concerns about cumulative impacts from additional selenium contamination stemming from any potential new mines. 

In a statement, Matthew White, the project leader for Glencore’s Sukunka project, said the project “remains on pause in the B.C. environmental assessment process. In the meantime, the working group continues to meet and Glencore is working to address questions and concerns raised at that table.”

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In the largest penalty ever issued for Fisheries Act offences, Teck Coal Limited was fined $60 million by the Provincial Court of British Columbia Friday for polluting waterways in the Elk Valley, where the company operates metallurgical coal mines.

Teck Coal, a subsidiary of Teck Resources, pleaded guilty to two charges related to selenium and calcite pollution released from its Fording River and Greenhills mines over the course of 2012. Crown prosecutors have agreed not to pursue charges related to releases of the same contaminants between 2013 and 2019.

Associate Chief Judge Paul Dohm said he is “satisfied the penalties imposed are a significant deterrent to Teck Coal.”

In a statement, Ktunaxa Nation Council said “there have been significant impacts to wuʔu (the water) in Qukin ʔamaʔkis (Elk Valley) due to coal mining, and those impacts continue to grow today with Teck Coal Limited’s operations.”

“This case, the charges laid, and the fines assessed, are steps in acknowledging the harm that has been and continues to be done to ʔamak ȼ wuʔu (the land and water) by development impacts done without Ktunaxa consent,” the statement reads.

Teck CEO offers apology, commitment to address water pollution

In an open letter, Teck CEO Don Lindsay said, “We sincerely apologize and take responsibility for the impacts of these discharges. Everyone at Teck is committed to responsible mining that protects the environment.”

“You have my commitment that we will not waver in our focus on addressing this challenge and working to ensure that the environment is protected for today and for future generations,” he said.

Lars Sander-Green, mining lead with the Kootenay-based conservation organization Wildsight, raised concerns however that when compared to Teck’s revenue from coal — more than $4.5 billion in 2012 alone — the fine may not do much to discourage further pollution.

“Here we are in 2021 and the problem just keeps getting worse and worse and worse every year,” he said.

Sander-Green said he was also “disappointed” that Environment and Climate Change Canada is not going to pursue charges for pollution offences between 2013 and 2019.

“It sends exactly the wrong message, which is that you can negotiate with Environment Canada if you’re a mine that’s polluting to keep your fines down,” he said.

Water, fish samples revealed harmful levels of selenium 

Selenium and calcium are released into the local environment when mine waste rock is exposed to precipitation and oxygen, Crown counsel Alexander Clarkson said in court, adding that the scale of the waste rock piles along the Upper Fording River is “substantial,” with some piles reaching more than 100 metres high.

Exposure to elevated levels of selenium is toxic for fish and can result in deformities and reproductive failure. Calcite, meanwhile, essentially turns the stream bottom to concrete, solidifying the loose gravels that fish rely on to create protective nests for their eggs.

Clarkson said Teck Coal was aware years earlier that selenium and calcite could cause environmental harm, but over the course of 2012 “did not exercise due diligence to prevent the deposit of coal mine waste rock leachate into the Fording River.”

Nor did the company have a comprehensive plan in place to address contamination from mine waste rock at that time, he said.

Read more: For decades B.C. failed to address selenium pollution in the Elk Valley. Now no one knows how to stop it.

At the same time, Teck failed to maintain barriers to prevent westslope cutthroat trout in the Upper Fording River from accessing the waste rock settling ponds, Clarkson said.

In 2012 Environment and Climate Change Canada officers collected samples of westslope cutthroat trout muscle and eggs in the Upper Fording River watershed and detected selenium concentrations high enough to cause adverse effects, he said.

Westslope cutthroat trout are listed as a species of concern under the federal Species at Risk Act.

Selenium concentrations detected in water samples from the Upper Fording River downstream of Teck’s coal mines ranged from 9 part per billion to 90 part per billion, according to an Environment and Climate Change publication on the investigation. Selenium concentrations upstream of the operations meanwhile, were less than 1 part per billion.

“Calcite deposits were also observed in tributaries supporting the habitat of the Upper Fording River westslope cutthroat trout population,” Clarkson noted.

Since 2012 Teck has conducted fish surveys in the Upper Fording River. While Clarkson noted the westslope cutthroat population was either stable or increasing in surveys conducted between 2013 and 2017, the 2019 survey revealed a dramatic collapse of the adult population relative to 2017 numbers. The cause of the collapse is still being investigated.

Ktunaxa Nation rights have been affected by coal mining in traditional territory

Teck’s coal mines are located within the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation.

“Fish and fish habitat are critical to the maintenance of Ktunaxa rights, interests, and practices for ecological, cultural, subsistence, and commercial values, particularly in light of the historic loss of swaq̓mu (salmon) from the upper Columbia,” said Vickie Thomas, the operational director of Ktunaxa lands and resources sector, as part of the Ktunaxa community impact statement she read in court.

“The pollution of waterways in qukin ʔamakʔis and Ȼam̓ na ʔamakʔis affects the Ktunaxa in many ways,” she said.

 “Ktunaxa perceptions of contamination in fish is already impairing Ktunaxa practice of rights on the Elk and Fording Rivers, including avoidance of these areas for fishing,” she said. 

“The result is an alienation of our people from our lands, waters and cultural practices.”

“From a Ktunaxa perspective, considering the overall disturbance of ʔamak (lands) within qukin ʔamakʔis, the threshold of adverse effects on the exercise of Ktunaxa rights has likely already been surpassed in the region,” Thomas said.

An illustration created by Ktunaxa artists, Darcy Luke and Marisa Phillips, was submitted as part of the Ktunaxa Nation’s impact statement regarding pollution of water in the Elk Valley from Teck’s coal mines. Illustration: Ktunaxa Nation

Wildsight calls for ‘pause’ on any expansion of Elk Valley coal mining

In his open letter, Teck CEO Lindsay said the company has invested about $1 billion to implement the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, which was developed in 2013 and approved in 2014, to reduce water pollution from the mines. As part of that plan, Teck has constructed water treatment facilities and implemented water quality monitoring and research and development initiatives. 

“While there has been significant progress since 2012, much more remains to be done. Additional water treatment facilities are under construction now with more in the planning stages,” Lindsay said, adding the company plans to invest up to $655 million in the next four years. 

“We are committed to meeting this challenge,” he said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada issued a directive to Teck in October 2020 requiring the company to take certain steps, including water treatment facilities, to improve water quality in the Upper Fording River Valley. 

Wildsight however, has repeatedly raised concerns that Teck’s costly water treatment facilities are not a sustainable long-term solution.

With four more mines proposed in the area, Sander-Green said he’d like to see a “pause” on any potential coal mining expansion in the Elk Valley.

“We’re very concerned that we’re going to see a lot more mining in the valley with water treatment that’s going to mask that pollution problem for as long as the coal lasts and then in the long-term we’re going to see even more pollution than we see today,” he said.

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