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There are only a handful of ways to get into the roadless wilderness of the upper Taku River. 

You can take an onerous 100-kilometre jetboat ride up the river from Juneau, Alaska’s capital city, or you can come in from the air, either by helicopter charter or by bush plane, which will land you in a lake where you can join the flow downstream.  

The wildness and vulnerability of the Taku are what have drawn me and my good friend Alex Craven to undertake a 130-kilometre pack-raft trip from a headwater lake nearly to its confluence with the Pacific.

Alex Craven surveying the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine site after a 15-kilometre hike up the river bed. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Besides a few short 4×4 trails, the entire Taku watershed remains without access roads and is considered to be the largest intact wilderness river system on the Pacific Coast of North America, despite past mineral development in the valley.

As an avid fly fishermen and back-country traveller in Alaska, I’ve wanted to visit the Taku for years because of its jaw-dropping beauty and relative isolation. Despite abundant wildlife including grizzlies, caribou, wolves, moose and all five species of salmon, the remote region sees few visitors.

But there’s another reason for my interest in the Taku. 

As a photographer and journalist, I’m also here to document the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine which, since the 1950s, has leaked acid mine drainage into a tributary of the Taku, the prevailing salmon-producing river for southeast Alaska.

Despite mounting public pressure, the Canadian and British Columbian governments have failed to clean up the mess for more than 60 years. 

The Tulsequah Chief mine is frequently referenced by downstream Alaskan stakeholders, tribes and fishermen as evidence B.C. cannot responsibly regulate the mining boom taking place near transboundary rivers that flow between Canada and the U.S. 

Arriving at the floatplane, Alex, a skilled paddler and staffer with the Sierra Club based out of Seattle, hops in the front seat.

Alex Craven gazes out across millions of hectares of roadless, unfragmented wild country. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Moving inland from the wet coastal range of Alaska, the Taku Valley forests transition from temperate rainforest to boreal forest in the drier interior of British Columbia. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Juneau slips out of view as we bank away from the Pacific and into the mouth of the mighty Taku River.

The fishing boats scattered across the confluence below us — where millions of salmon are beginning their arduous journey home to headwaters — disappear from view as we move toward the wide-open valley ahead. Tall peaks tower on either side, as the vast 1.8 million-hectare Taku watershed opens up in front of us. This will be our home for the next seven days.

We float the Inklin River to its confluence with the Nakina where the Taku River begins on the map. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

The location of the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine in relation to the vast 1.8 million-hectare Taku River watershed. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Our travel route included an eight-kilometre hike from King Salmon Lake to the Inklin River. Once on the river, we paddled downstream to join the Taku River and eventually took a detour north to the Tulsequah River where we located the abandoned mine site. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

After an hour-long bush flight, the plane circles and lands on a large mountain lake. 

We grab our packs and begin the eight-kilometre hike down to the Inklin River, a tributary of the Taku. 

Alex Craven shuttling a heavy pack loaded with pack rafts, life jackets, cameras, bear spray, camping gear and a week’s worth of food from our float plane on King Salmon Lake. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Hiking down to the river requires fighting chest-high thickets of devil’s club and swarms of mosquitoes. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

We are grateful to find an old trail that runs along a trapline but in places it has been completely reclaimed by the forest and soon we are bushwhacking. Blindly pushing through the thick undergrowth, we know we could easily bump into a bear or moose. 

The mosquitoes swarm.

Thick devil’s club, a fierce spiny plant, makes for slow progress. It’s four hours until we hear the sound of the Inklin.

Finally at the river’s edge, we inflate pack rafts, load our gear and begin the seven-day float.

Alex paddles his inflatable pack raft down the Inklin River. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Though the wilderness is rugged, the weather is fair and calm. We make our way through the rapids of the Inklin Canyon and into the swift but gentle current that will be the norm for the rest of the paddle. 

The Taku River runs near the 58th parallel. As our float coincides with the summer solstice, the sun barely sets at midnight during a short interval of bright evening twilight. 

Our first night we camp next to a clear stream and catch a nice Dolly Varden, a species of char that splits its time between the ocean and pristine rivers like the Taku.

Dolly Varden are an anadromous species of trout that gather in large numbers in the Taku River to feed on the salmon spawn. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Tiger swallowtail gathering is a sign of the return of chinook salmon, called king salmon in Alaska. While the Taku River has historically been known for bountiful returns of kings, numbers have been declining in recent years resulting in closures to the fishery. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

We’re travelling through a part of the four million hectare (10-million acre) traditional territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation. 

Less than 200 years ago the river was flanked by permanent village sites and seasonal subsistence camps. To this day the Taku River Tlingit people rely on the river and watershed for moose, deer, caribou and prized chinook salmon. 

Several decades ago, the First Nation successfully fought the proposed development of a 159-kilometre access road that would have crossed the heart of the watershed, opening it up for mineral exploration.

In 2011, the nation and provincial government agreed to protect a large part of the watershed from development and to jointly manage aspects of the region. 

But that agreement has done little to remedy the decades-old problem of the Tulsequah Chief mine, situated on the Tulsequah River, a major tributary of the Taku.

A view of the midnight sunset from our camp on the Taku River. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Alex cooks a fish dinner over the campfire. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Paddling up to the staging area for the Tulsequah Chief mine. From here we hike 15 kilometres up a dirt road along the bank of the Tulsequah River to the abandoned mine site. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

A small rotting dock is the first sign we see of the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine. We pull our rafts up and step on the bank. This is the spot where barges would land after a long, perilous run up the swift, shallow Taku River. From here trucks would transport equipment up the 15-kilometre provisional road to the mine. 

Discarded trucks and boats, bunk houses and storage containers are scattered around the yard, left to rust amongst the trees. 

In Canada it is not uncommon for mining companies to walk away from cleanup obligations. According to a July report from Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, “as many as 10,000 orphaned and abandoned mine sites exist across the country.” The report notes that, “B.C.’s policies have contributed to a situation where, according to the most recent figures, the province holds only $1.36 billion in financial assurance against an estimated $2.8 billion total cleanup liability.”

Skiffs and barges were used to run workers and materials upriver to this staging area, from which trucks could drive the access road to the Tulsequah Chief mine. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

After five days on the river, the sight of rusting and discarded 50-gallon drums of chemicals feels strikingly out of place. Their mere existence here — 100 kilometres into the backcountry, in a vast roadless landscape — feels implausible. 

As we walk around, we see the remnants of several stages of ownership and haphazard operation of the site. Since Teck-Cominco abandoned the site in 1957, two companies — Redfern Resources and Chieftain Metals — have obtained exploration permits by promising to clean up the acid mine drainage. 

Both failed in their cleanup efforts and collapsed under debt.

We wondered whether the skull and crossbones on the outside was meant as humour or a legitimate health warning. Standing near the door, I was quickly struck with a headache. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

An abandoned silo at the staging area is filled with trash, chemical waste and discarded equipment. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Road building is a topic of intense debate in southeast Alaska where there are no major road systems connecting the region’s communities. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

A bunkhouse, still appearing new, looked as though it had been abandoned in a hurry, soon after construction. Shoes, telephones and other supplies lay in piles on the floor. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

An abandoned room in the bunkhouse. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

From the staging area we spent a day hiking up the access road and then the riverbed to the site of the Tulsequah Chief mine. 

Situated directly on the bank of the river, the site was startling and apocalyptic. 

Several new buildings, numerous storage containers and treatment ponds were scattered along the riverside. Rising steeply up from the river was a hillside that had been torn up by mining work.

The Tulsequah Chief mine site situated just metres from the river. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

There were several pallets of ferric chloride, used in water treatment. Crisscrossing a dried up tailings pond, black bear tracks were perfectly preserved in the orange mud. The door of a storage container was cracked open, a pile of ominous-looking soak rags in a heap.

A large shed was filled with what appeared to be materials for an elaborate water treatment system. The water treatment system looked as if it was in very new condition and perhaps never operated before abandonment.

Numerous containers are filled with chemicals and equipment from attempted cleanup of the mine site. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

A barrel of ferric chloride. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

The hill above the river has been excavated extensively and the open earth is stained with the signature rust colour of acid mine drainage. Few plants grow among the orange rocks and many trees appear dead or dying. Several creeks run down through the old mine waste into a pond coated in a thick orange slime.

Previous owners of the site were required to construct new wastewater treatment systems but it’s clear standing near the river’s edge how thoroughly those attempts have failed. A wastewater pond, separated from the river by just 10 metres of gravel bank, has breached and eroded. A small stream of contaminated water flows directly into the Tulsequah. 

The overflowing containment pond. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

The wall separating the pond from the Tulsequah River has eroded and wastewater now drains directly into the river. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Over the last decade Canadian officials have at times alleged that “there there isn’t significant environmental harm being done” to the watershed by the water leaking out of Tulsequah Chief. However, this summer the commissioners of several Alaskan agencies wrote that “there are measurable impacts to Tulsequah River water quality and fish habitats next to the mine site and a mile and a half downstream in the Canadian portion of the river.” They noted that these impacts have not yet been detected on the Alaska side of the Taku.

The Canada-U.S. border is marked by a clearcut strip, which cuts across the Taku valley about 20 kilometres from the mine site. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Pressure on B.C. increased in June with a letter from eight senators to Premier John Horgan, urging him to address the threats to transboundary rivers from mining.

“As you know, Alaska, Washington, Idaho and Montana have tremendous natural resources that need to be protected against impacts from B.C. hard rock and coal-mining activities near the headwaters of shared rivers, many of which support environmentally and economically significant salmon populations,” the senators wrote to Horgan. 

“These transboundary watersheds support critical water supply, recreation opportunities and wildlife habitat that support many livelihoods in local communities.”

There are numerous mines at various stages of their lifecycle from proposed to active to abandoned in the B.C.-Alaska transboundary region. Mapped above are 19 of those mines spanning four major river watersheds, including the Taku, the Stikine, the Nass and the Unuk, all of which support major salmon populations. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

The letter followed a report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre that found 1,100 closed mines across B.C. that continue to represent environmental threats.

The report found that some mines subject to acid mine drainage can never be fully cleaned up and may be subject to expensive water treatment in perpetuity. The Britannia mine, for example, required a $46 million treatment system for acid drainage that requires $3 million each year to operate — all funded by taxpayers.

A coalition of 30 groups in B.C. this summer called on the province to overhaul out-dated mining laws to alleviate risks to the public and the environment.

Alex’s souvenir from the trip was a beautiful moose shed. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Desire for a solution to the Tulsequah Chief mine is at an all-time high with multiple new mine projects in various stages of proposal or development along the B.C.-Alaska border. 

But there’s also cautious optimism for the Tulsequah River now that B.C. has finally selected a contractor to develop a cleanup plan. However, the contractor — embattled SNC Lavalin — is steeped in controversy and an unfolding ethics scandal that could once again derail cleanup of the site. 

A final remediation plan is not expected until the end of 2019.

The Tulsequah Chief gives some indication of how costly and challenging a long-term containment and treatment solution is, even for a small amount of waste water. 

New mines in the transboundary watershed are being built at a scale far greater than the Tulsequah Chief. 

Several years ago I flew over the Red Chris mine, owned and operated by Imperial Metals, a company facing the threat of bankruptcy. I was awestruck by the scale of the mine and tailings pond after only two years of production. Red Chris is perched on a mountain top above the Stikine River watershed, another salmon-rich transboundary system shared by B.C. and Alaska.

Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine in the headwaters of the Stikine River. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Imperial Metals is also the company that owned and operated the Mount Polley mine, the site of one of Canada’s largest environmental disasters after a tailings pond collapsed, sending 24 million cubic metres of contaminated water into Quesnel Lake. 

Imperial Metals’ full reclamation costs are estimated at $173.6 million, with only $14.3 million held in reclamation deposits. 

The Taku Glacier near the confluence with the Pacific Ocean where we caught a flight back to Juneau from a lodge. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

As we paddle out past the melting Taku glacier and to the confluence where salt and freshwater meet, I try and wrap my head around the timescale of water, rock and ice. 

A salmon jumps and makes a daring dash across the water’s surface. A moment later a seal head pops up just five metres from our boat, a sockeye dangling from its mouth. It is the magic of moments like this that have led me to fall in love with southeast Alaska. 

These are also the moments that highlight what is at stake as B.C. considers new and larger mines in these remote, shared regions.

*Article updated on Oct. 11, 2019, at 2:45 p.m. to reflect the fact that both Chieftain and Redfern went bankrupt and to correct a previous reference to strip-mining on a hillside. The mining was actually underground mining, not strip mining.

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Eight American senators have written to B.C. Premier John Horgan urging him to address downstream contamination from the province’s metal and coal mines.

The letter — an unprecedented joint undertaking from all senators from the four states bordering the province, including both Republicans and Democrats — outlines concerns about potential environmental and economic impacts from B.C. mines that pollute rivers flowing into the U.S.

“As you know, Alaska, Washington, Idaho and Montana have tremendous natural resources that need to be protected against impacts from B.C. hard rock and coal-mining activities near the headwaters of shared rivers, many of which support environmentally and economically significant salmon populations,” the senators wrote in the two-page letter, released Thursday.

They noted that Indigenous peoples — “whose lands are affected by past, present and proposed mines near transboundary rivers” — have also voiced concerns and have asked governments on both sides of the border to undertake cumulative assessments of the impacts B.C. mines have on communities as well as on cultural and natural resources.

“These transboundary watersheds support critical water supply, recreation opportunities and wildlife habitat that support many livelihoods in local communities,” the senators wrote to Horgan, saying they are concerned about the lack of oversight of Canadian mining projects near multiple transboundary rivers that originate in B.C.

The senators also referenced the need for binding international protections that would bring B.C.’s mining laws in line with laws in the U.S.

Jen Holmwood, Horgan’s deputy communications director and press secretary, said the premier was travelling back from Europe and had not seen the letter, which was received in his office Thursday morning. She referred questions from The Narwhal to B.C.’s ministry of energy, mines and petroleum resources.

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

‘The United States is not a settling pond’

The senators’ letter is the latest and most high-profile attempt from the U.S. to prod B.C. into cleaning up its mining act.

B.C. mines have been fouling rivers that flow into the U.S. for decades with contaminants such as acid rock drainage. Selenium from Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines, which share a watershed with Idaho and Montana, has killed and deformed fish, threatening native trout and Kootenai River white sturgeon.

Teck’s five metallurgical coal mines are all upstream of the transboundary Koocanusa Reservoir. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

“The United States is not a settling pond for Teck Resources and the rest of Canada’s mining industry,” said former Kootenai River fishing guide Mike Rooney in a statement released Thursday by the three U.S. conservation groups — Salmon Beyond Borders, National Parks Conservation Association and Headwaters Montana — who sent the senators’ letter to media on both sides of the border.

Rooney urged Horgan and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to act “to protect our businesses, resources and citizens” by requesting intervention under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty.

“Anything less is not the solution this international problem deserves,” Rooney wrote.

The Boundary Waters Treaty aims to prevent and resolve disputes over the use of waters shared by Canada and the U.S.

Indigenous peoples have also asked the U.S. and Canadian governments to enforce the Boundary Waters Treaty.

The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission commended the senators’ letter in a media statement, saying that Canada and the U.S. face “an international problem requiring international solutions.”

“The U.S. and B.C. must work vigilantly together to protect our lands and precious watersheds,” the commission said. The commission is comprised of 15 federally recognized Tribes of Southeast Alaska whose mission is to create a unified voice for Indigenous peoples across the international border who are facing impacts from development and industrialization.

Under the Boundary Waters Treaty, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments can bring disputes to the International Joint Commission, which has resolved more than 100 matters over the last century.

In their letter, the senators informed Horgan that the International Joint Commission did not convene in April for its usual meeting because it lacked a quorum. The senators noted that discussions about transboundary water issues generally occur at the commission’s annual meeting, regretting the “absence of engagement” this year.

Without the International Joint Commission, “mining companies have been partying like it’s 1909,” said Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission chair Rob Sanderson Jr., a vice-president on the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s executive council.

Last July, U.S. representatives on the commission accused Canadian commissioners of suppressing data on coal mining pollution flowing from B.C.’s Elk Valley into Montana.

A metallurgical coal mine, owned and operated by Teck Resources in B.C.’s Elk Valley. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Alaska has expressed concern for years about B.C. mines

Both the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission and the three conservation groups pointed to the Tulsequah Chief mine, which for more than six decades has been discharging acid mine drainage into the transboundary salmon-bearing Taku River, which drains into Taku Inlet near Juneau, Alaska.

The commission alleged that the mine has been violating the international treaty for decades.

“We seek permanent protections from future disaster,” the commission said.

B.C.’s mining industry has a troubled reputation within the province as well.

In May, more than 30 groups released a report aimed at updating B.C.’s ‘archaic’ mining laws, saying reforms are required to address the ticking time bomb of abandoned mines and to protect taxpayers from millions of dollars in liabilities.

In August, 2014, a tailings pond full of toxic copper and gold mining waste breached at the Mount Polley mine in the central B.C., spilling an estimated 25 billion litres of contaminated materials into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for sockeye salmon.

No charges or fines have been laid in response to the disaster.

Christine McLean of the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake launched an appeal against the Mount Polley mine being given a permit to pipe effluent into Quesnel Lake after the Mount Polley disaster. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski said in a media statement that the letter to Horgan follows multiple letters the Alaska delegation has sent over the past five years to the U.S. Department of State “expressing concerns about B.C. mining practices and potential downstream effects on U.S. resources and livelihoods.”

“This letter [to Horgan] shows solidarity from our states and calls for greater protections for our transboundary watersheds,” Murkowski wrote in a statement she posted Thursday on her website.

“Reforms that ensure mining projects in British Columbia don’t impact Southeast Alaska are essential to protecting our way of life, and must include a system of financial assurances to assure sustained protections of vulnerable natural resources,” she wrote.

Ketchikan, Alaska, which calls itself the “salmon capital of the world” is downstream of several B.C. mines. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Alaska Repulican Senator Dan Sullivan said he has been working with Canadian counterparts for several years — at local, provincial and federal levels — to raise awareness and concern about potential impacts posed by B.C. mining development to streams that flow across the border into Alaska’s southeast communities and waters.

“While we need to continue these discussions with our partners to the east, we also need to begin putting forward concrete steps that will ensure that all British Columbian mining projects have the level of oversight, monitoring, financial assurances and mitigation planning necessary to protect Alaska’s world-class fishery resources in [the] southeast,” Sullivan said in a joint statement with Murkowski.

U.S. taxpayers have spent millions restoring rivers and fisheries

The conservation groups also noted that B.C. government is considering a contentious proposal from Imperial Metals to mine the headwaters of the Skagit River, the most important salmon river in Seattle’s Puget Sound area.

“U.S. taxpayers have spent billions of dollars restoring these rivers and fisheries,” stated Salmon Beyond Borders director Jill Weitz. “It would be a tragedy to have that investment undone by B.C. mining contamination.”

Map showing the location of the ‘Doughnut Hole’ between Skagit Valley and Manning provincial parks. The Doughnut Hole lies within the headwaters of the Skagit River. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

The senators told Horgan they are concerned about the “lack of oversight” of Canadian mining projects near multiple transboundary rivers that originate in B.C. and flow into the four states they represent. They said they have partnered with federal and state governments to improve water quality monitoring and to push for “constructive engagement” with Canada.

“We hope to encourage you, in your role as Premier, to allocate similar attention, engagement and resources to collaborative management of our shared transboundary watershed,” the senators wrote.

Among other U.S. initiatives outlined by the senators are the establishment of an interagency working group in 2017 — by the State Department, the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency — to address concerns regarding B.C.’s mining activity in transboundary watersheds and “to determine the specific mechanisms necessary to safeguard U.S. economic interests and resources.”

Senators ask Horgan to engage directly on mining issue

The U.S. Congress has also allocated US $1.8 million to the Department of the Interior for stream gauges that will provide better monitoring and water quality data at the international boundary, “including detection of any impacts from upstream mining.”

Additionally, the senators note that in April 2018, the U.S. State Department presented concerns and opportunities for collaboration to Global Affairs Canada to forge a stronger decision-making process regarding mining impacts in shared transboundary watersheds, to address the “insufficient” scoping and evaluation of past, present and future mining impacts and to ensure the use of “objective, transparent” data collection and monitoring.

Congress has directed the U.S. government to increase its work with federal, state, tribal and local partners, including local elected officials, to monitor and reduce contaminants in transboundary watersheds, the senators told Horgan.

“We have both an opportunity and a responsibility to better manage our critical shared resources in a cooperative, constructive manner,” the senators wrote. In their letter, they also requested Horgan’s “direct engagement” on the issue and asked the premier to engage in dedicated efforts to monitor transboundary water quality.

The energy ministry told The Narwhal that B.C. is “committed to working closely with our transboundary neighbours to protect and enhance our shared environment and waterways.”

In an emailed statement, the ministry also noted that “Alaska is much involved in the assessment and permitting of existing and proposed mines in the transboundary watersheds,” such as the Red Chris, Brucejack and Red Mountain mines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mount Polley mine had a total tailings storage volume of 44 million cubic metres. B.C.’s massive transboundary mines require much higher volumes of waste storage. The tailings facility at Red Chris can store up to 305 million cubic metres of mine waste. Galore Creek will have a storage volume of 424 million cubic metres, Shaft Creek of 588 million cubic metres and KSM a staggering 1,213 million cubic metres.

Frederick Otilius Olsen Jr. is the Haida Tribal President of the Organized Village of Kasaan and chair of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. “We have been trying for years to get the B.C. government to adequately address our interests and concerns, but other than nice words and vague promises, we seem to be getting nowhere,” Olsen Jr. said. “It takes a little wisdom, but sometimes to do something different, you have to do something you never did.”

The tailings pond at the Red Chris mine has a capacity of 305 million cubic metres — seven times more than the Mount Polley tailings dam, which collapsed three years ago. In the case of Mount Polley, British Columbian taxpayers ended up on the hook for $40 million of cleanup costs. No fines were levied and no charges have been laid against Mount Polley.

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

This is the view northeast across Todagin Creek, wetlands and Tatogga Lake with the road to Red Chris mine on the right. If any tailings escaped from the south dam of the Red Chris tailings pond, this is the point where the tailings would enter the Iskut river system.**

Melanie Brown, left, is a fourth generation commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Heather Hardcastle, right, is director of the conservation organization Salmon Beyond Borders and a commercial fisherman in Juneau, Alaska. “We share these waters and we share these fish. There has to be an international solution,” Hardcastle said.

Massive braiding and bars from glacial sediment inputs on the Iskut river. Alluvial flood planes such as this are highly vulnerable to disruption.

A view of what is called the “Grand Canyon” of the Stikine River. Considered one of the last truly wild rivers in British Columbia, its 600-kilometre length encompasses mountain peaks and glaciers and supports some of the continent’s richest salmon habitat and wildlife populations.

If you look closely at this photo, you’ll see the drill pads perched on the mountainside (low centre right) and camp (centre left) of the Spectrum GJ gold-copper project, located 30 kilometres west of the Red Chris mine. It is just one of many examples of the lengths mining companies are going to open new mines in the isolated region.

A helicopter nearly disappears in the expanse of this glacier near the Brucejack gold mine. B.C.’s glaciers lose an estimated 22 billion cubic metres of water every year, feeding the province’s rich river systems.

A view east across Brucejack mine site and Brucejack Lake. Brucejack is an underground gold and silver mine. It will create 300 permanent jobs during its 22-year life. Owner Pretium has taken steps to minimize tailings risks by backfilling about half its mine waste in a paste mixed with cement in the underground mine. The other half will be stored in Brucejack Lake.

The Brucejack mine required the construction of an 11-kilometre glacial highway up the centreline of Knipple Glacier. The glacier retreated 300 metres between 2000 and 2011.

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

Joe Williams is a member of the Tlingit and former mayor of Ketchikan Borough, Alaska. He is also the owner and guide of Where the Eagle Walks, a walking tour business. Williams worries mining in the region has affected the health of oolichan populations. “The Department of Fish and Game say we can’t fish it anymore, even when it is out in the bay. It’s a sad thing. Now none of my kids know how to make oolichan oil and we can’t get it for me to teach them.”

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

The proposed KSM mine site is in the foreground with Brucejack gold mine in the background. KSM sits atop one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold reserves. Once built, it will become one of the largest gold and copper mine in North America, with three open pits and two underground mines. The project initially entailed mining under an active glacier, but that glacier has now retreated. The project will require the construction of two 23-kilometre-long tunnels to deposit mine waste into a tailings impoundment. At 239 metres tall, the tailings dam wall for KSM will be higher than the Shangri-La, the tallest building in Vancouver and the tailings pond will hold 27 times more waste than was held in the Mount Polley tailings dam.*** 

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

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

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

Although most of the mines in this region have a life expectancy of 20 to 50 years, their toxic legacy continues far beyond. This contaminated tailings pond of the Premier gold mine in the Salmon Valley is one example. Originally built in 1910, it operated steadily for 50 years and sporadically for a few years after that. It opened again in 1989 to close once again in 1996. This toxic tailings pound is currently being upgraded to today’s standards so it can be reopened in the future.

A grizzly bear fishes for salmon in Fish Creek, Alaska, just downstream of the Premier gold mine.

Ketchikan, Alaska, just across the border from British Columbia has dubbed itself the “salmon capital of the world.” Ketchikan’s economy is based upon government services, tourism and commercial fishing.

The last catch of the season is offloaded and processed at Alaska General Seafoods in Ketchikan. Alaska’s fishing industry employs nearly 60,000 workers, of which nearly half are fishermen.

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

The initial mechanical processing and canning of salmon at Alaska General Seafoods in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Chief Shakes Tribal House in Wrangell, Alaska. Coastal indigenous cultures are closely tied to salmon and have flourished here for more than 10,000 years.

Brenda Schwartz-Yeager is a fourth generation Wrangell-based Alaskan. As the owner and operator of Alaska Charters and Adventures, Schwartz-Yeager is a confident navigator of the ever-changing Stikine River. “What makes the Stikine so special and unique is its vast wildness,” she said. “We just don’t have many places of this size, and scope, and wildness left on the earth.”

Icebergs and Castle Mountain as seen from Shakes Lake, which feeds the Stikine River in Alaska. Traveling the lower Stikine in 1879, American conservationist John Muir called it “a Yosemite 100 miles long.”

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

This photo essay was funded by The Narwhal readers like you. Want more journalism like this? Become a member today.

Updated on Oct. 30, 2017, at 7:05 p.m. PST. The transboundary map in this article was updated to reflect the fact that the Galore Creek mine is in the development stage, rather than operational as previously stated.

Updated on Nov. 2, 2017, at 10 a.m. PST to correct the lake in the photo to Tattoga Lake, not Todagin Lake. Thank you to the reader with the sharp eye who pointed this out to us.

Updated on Oct. 31, 2017, at 10:45 a.m. PST. The article was updated to reflect the fact that the KSM mine will no longer require mining under an active glacier, as that glacier has now retreated from the proposed pit area. The description of of KSM has also been corrected to refer to the project as one of the largest undeveloped gold and copper mines in North America, rather than the largest undeveloped open-pit gold and copper mine in North America.

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.

Canada has more mine tailings spills than most other countries in the world, according to a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which urges governments and the mining industry to improve safety, accountability and oversight.

During the last decade there have been seven known mine tailings spills in Canada, only one less than reported in China, which tops the list, says the report.

The UNEP assessment “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident” looks at 40 tailings accidents, including the 2014 Mount Polley disaster that saw 24 million cubic metres of sludge and mine waste flooding into nearby waterways.

It is estimated that, since 2008, mining waste failures have killed more than 340 people, damaged hundreds of kilometres of waterways, affected drinking water sources, wiped out fish populations, destroyed heritage sites and monuments and jeopardized the livelihoods of many communities.

And the documented disasters may not tell the whole story as there is no global database of mine sites and tailings storage facilities — something the report calls for.

“This is just a glimpse of what we know. A lot of the data is missing. We need an international database of mining spills and mining failures. If you don’t collect that solid data, you are not in the best position to correct the problems,” Ugo LaPointe of MiningWatch Canada told DeSmog Canada.

“We should be asking the regulators and the industry why no one on the planet is tracking spills and failures.”

The root of the problem is that environmental and human safety is not the first priority for mining operations, says the report, which recommends that regulators, industry and communities move to a “zero-failure objective” rather than focusing on the bottom line.

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

“These risks present a challenge for this generation and, if not addressed now, a debt we will leave to future generations.”

Canada Has Second-Worst #Mining Record in World: UN https://t.co/wHdbhwaiAM #mountpolley #bcpoli #cdnpoli @MiningWatch pic.twitter.com/r5ED6hkkUd

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 27, 2017

Jessica Draker, Mining Association of Canada (MAC) communications director, said the organization wholeheartedly agrees with the United Nations call for a zero-failure objective.

“In fact, MAC and its members committed to a goal of zero catastrophic failures of tailings facilities and no significant adverse effects on the environment and human health well before the report was published,” she said.

MAC’s tailings management guide is recognized as leading the field globally, Draker said in an e-mailed response to questions.

After the Mount Polley mine disaster, MAC struck an independent task force — with 29 recommendations now being incorporated in the guidelines — and held a parallel internal review, Draker said.

“Next month MAC will release a revised Tailings Guide informed by these reviews,” she said.

The guide will incorporate recommendations by the Mount Polley expert panel, said Draker, adding that it is important to learn from mistakes such as Mount Polley.

The United Nations report does not speculate about why countries such as China and Canada have a high dam failure rate, but the data underlines that Canada is doing poorly, with almost 20 per cent of the documented failures, LaPointe said.

“The problem is that the industry is not yet acknowledging publicly that there are too many financially risky, marginal mines that are being permitted,” he said.

Marginal companies cut corners in safety, dam construction and monitoring and then do not have the financial capacity to ensure the safety of people and the environment around those sites, LaPointe said.

Alaska and Quebec demand large financial securities, paid up front, and other provinces should follow suit and consider the financial profile of each mine as one of the criteria for approval, LaPointe suggested.

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

A paper by researchers Lindsay Bowker and David Chambers, published this month in the journal Environments, draws the connection between economics and high failure of mining waste storage facilities and concludes that financially marginal mines push existing infrastructure beyond design capacity.

The paper estimates that between one third and one half of technically operating mines are no longer economically viable or never were viable.

However, regulators stand by passively, assuming production of the mines will resume and jobs will be retained, despite the flaws in infrastructure, it says.

“These are not assumptions supported by available data or expert economic analysis,” says the paper.

Meanwhile, B.C. is facing increasing criticism from Southeast Alaskans who say they do not trust B.C.’s regulation or oversight after the Mount Polley spill and decades of inaction on the Tulsequah Chief, which is leaking acid mine drainage into a tributary of one of Alaska’s major salmon rivers.

With up to 10 mines planned on the B.C. side of the border, Southeast Alaskan tribes, fishing organizations, local politicians and environmental groups are pushing for the U.S. federal government to step in and mediate water quality concerns.

“There aren’t currently any enforceable protections for Southeast salmon rivers should Canadian mine runoff impact water quality,” said Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission Chairman Frederick Olsen Jr.

Among the concerns is the Red Chris mine, owned by Imperial Metals, which also owns Mount Polley. Despite recommendations by the Mount Polley expert panel for companies to move to dry tailings, Red Chris uses a tailings pond that has seven times the capacity of Mount Polley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Generations of John Morris Sr.’s family have fished the Taku River in Southeast Alaska and for decades they have watched acid mine drainage from the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine in B.C. flow into a tributary of the Taku.

Now, with a new NDP government, running on support from the Green Party and a shared promise of reconciliation with First Nations and a commitment to the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Morris is hoping there will finally be some action on the Tulsequah Chief clean-up.

Indigenous and conservation groups in Alaska, who are ready to put pressure on B.C.’s new government, are pointing to a previous statement in the Legislature by Green Leader Andrew Weaver who said the Tulsequah Chief gives B.C. “an environmental black eye.”

“We have worked on this for so many years now, one day it’s going to fall on the right ears,” said Morris, spokesman for the Douglas Indian Association.

The area around the salmon-rich Taku River is sacred to Southeast Alaskan tribes and cleaning up the mess around the Tulsequah Chief is vitally important, especially given growing unease as larger mines open on the B.C. side of the border, according to Morris.

There are 10 advanced mining projects in the northwest corner of British Columbia.

“Hopefully something can be done. As soon as the right people are in the right places (in the new government) there will be some ears we can bend,” he said.

Premier designate John Horgan is expected to announce his new cabinet later this month. In a brief statement emailed to The Province, Jen Holmwood, caucus spokeswoman for the NDP, said cleanup of Tulsequah Chief “is a serious issue we’ll be looking into and have to say more on in the weeks ahead.”

Hopes ran high the mine would be cleaned up after former Liberal energy and mines minister Bill Bennett visited the mine site in 2015 and promised to remedy the situation. However, after leaving Alaska, where he had appeared shocked at the extent of the pollution, Bennett started backtracking and claimed there was no environmental threat.

The small zinc and copper mine has polluted the surrounding area since it was initially shut down in 1957 and a litany of clean-up promises were broken as the mine passed through a series of owners, including two companies that went bankrupt.

In September 2016 Chieftain Metals Corp., the latest owner of the mine, went into receivership, but the receiver, Grant Thornton Ltd., has posted documents on its website showing an unnamed company is interested in buying Chieftain’s stock.

However, groups in Alaska want the mine closed, not sold, especially as, by buying stock rather than the assets, the new company would be able to use Chieftain’s existing permits and would not have to consult with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation.

The Grant Thornton documents say many government permits and licences necessary for the operation “have consent rights” as a condition.

“The purchase and sale of the shares of (Chieftain) may obviate the need for any such assignments and consents,” according to the documents.

Morris is adamant that the Tulsequah Chief is not a viable mine and it’s time to clean it up and close it down for once and for all.

“Two mining companies have gone bankrupt trying to re-open this mine and have left a legacy of toxic acid mine drainage into salmon habitat. B.C.’s assurances of mine clean-up seem hollow with B.C. more interested in re-opening this failed mine, rather than cleaning up its 60-year legacy of pollution,” he said.

Alaskan Hopes Pinned on New BC Gov as Sale Looms for Polluting #Mine #bcpoli https://t.co/0gp9vs8brn

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 5, 2017

Chris Zimmer, Rivers Without Borders Alaska campaign director, said the new government needs to take a new look at Tulsequah and repair some of the damage to Alaska/B.C. relations done by previous governments.

“This is a (Christy) Clark/Bennett leftover that the new incoming B.C. government should end,” Zimmer said.

“Trying to re-open the Tulsequah Chief a third time is not a clean-up plan. It is a recipe for another bankruptcy, more pollution and opening up the heart of the Taku to mining and road building,” he said.

Lack of consultation about a new buyer for the mine, despite the signing last year of a Statement of Cooperation between Alaska and B.C., is bringing rumblings of discontent and renewed calls for the two federal governments to become involved in transboundary mining problems.

“If B.C. can’t solve the pollution problem at the relatively small Tulsequah Chief, what can we expect at much larger mines, such as Red Chris and KSM, especially without federal involvement under the Boundary Waters treaty,” asked Frederick Olsen Jr., United Tribal Trans-boundary Mining Work Group chair.

The cooperation agreement is similar to relying on the Neighbourhood Watch program, when police are needed, he said.

The Mount Polley disaster weighs heavily on many Southeast Alaskans who wonder what would happen if there was a similar tailings dam breach on the border, with poison reaching one of the major salmon-bearing rivers.

“It wouldn’t just be the salmon, it would be the whole ecosystem — the bears and wolves and every other creature that depends on this,” Morris said.

“We’re all for economic development, but let’s do it safe.”

Image: Taku River. Photo: Chris Miller via Salmon Beyond Borders

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Alaskans tired of living under the threat of B.C.’s poorly regulated mines are taking the matter to the state’s House Fisheries Committee in an effort to escalate an international response to ongoing issues such as the slow leakage of acidic waste from the deserted Tulsequah Chief Mine in northwest B.C. into the watershed of one of the richest salmon runs in the B.C./Alaska transboundary region.

On Thursday the committee will assess a resolution sponsored by several House Representatives “urging the United States government to continue to work with the government of Canada to investigate the long-term, region-wide downstream effects of proposed and existing industrial development and to develop measures to ensure that state resources are not harmed by upstream development in B.C.”

Although Tulsequah is a catalyst, concerns go deeper as B.C. is handing out permits for a clutch of proposed new mines close to the Alaskan border, including the KSM mine, the largest open-pit gold and copper mine in North America.

Chris Zimmer, Rivers Without Borders Alaska campaign director, said Alaskans are troubled by B.C.’s lack of enforcement of mining regulations — underlined by the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse and its $40 million taxpayer funded cleanup — and the alarming practice of accepting bonds from companies that do not cover reclamation costs.

“If B.C. can’t ensure that the Tulsequah Chief is cleaned up, why should Alaskans have any trust that much larger mines like KSM won’t pollute our waters?” Zimmer asked.

‘B.C. Can’t Continue Saying it is World Class’ in Mining

A brief spark of hope that B.C. would act on Tulsequah flared after Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett visited Southeast Alaska in 2015 and was, reportedly, shocked by leakage from abandoned mine works and sludge ponds.

“I think B.C. is going to have to find a way to rectify it sooner rather than later and I think it is a most legitimate criticism of us by those folks in Alaska that don’t like it,” Bennett said at that time.

Since Bennett’s 2015 visit, B.C. government contractors have moved the pipe, so water runs into a containment pond before overflowing into the river, and cleaned up leaking fuel tanks and improperly stored chemicals, Zimmer said.

However, last fall, Chieftain Metals Corp., the latest owners of the mine, declared bankruptcy after running a water treatment plant for only six months and Bennett then appeared to backtrack on the promise of a full-scale clean up.

Bennett, who is not running in the May provincial election, did not return calls or emails from DeSmog Canada.

No provincial money has been publicly earmarked for the Tulsequah clean up, which David Chambers of the Center for Science in Public Participation estimates would cost about $3.8 million in Canadian dollars.

Total annual water treatment costs, which would have to be continued in perpetuity, would be about $3.4-million, according to Chambers’ study.

“And that’s just one tiny little mine,” Zimmer said.

Even if a new company takes over, there is no assurance it will clean up Tulsequah because, unlike Alaska, which estimates a realistic reclamation figure and then demands full payment up front, B.C. has no such guarantees, Zimmer said.

“The polluter-pay principle doesn’t work if the polluter goes bust.”

But in B.C. there is no assurance that the polluter will pay even if the company does not go bust, said Heather Hardcastle of Juneau-based Salmon Beyond Borders.

“The notion that reclamation sureties are not adequately assessed in B.C and companies don’t have to put up full reclamation sureties up front, as they have to do in Alaska and many other countries in the world, means B.C. can’t continue saying it is world class in terms of their mining sector,” she said.

Alaska sets the amount of the bond as part of the environmental assessment process, with public input, meaning that the bond is usually a realistic calculation of the cost of reclamation. The state then demands cash or bonds up front before the project can proceed.

In contrast, in B.C. the Chief Inspector of Mines has complete discretion in setting the amount of the bond, meaning it is not a transparent process. The figure is generally set much lower than in Alaska and the entire amount does not have to be paid up front.

B.C., unlike Alaska, will also accept guarantees, rather than insisting on cash or bonds.

Compared to Alaska B.C.’s Mines Represent Massive Taxpayer Liability

A glaring example of the differences is illustrated in a brief that independent economist Robyn Allan is presenting to the Alaska State Legislature.

Teck Resources Ltd. operates the Red Dog Mine in Alaska, which is expected to require water treatment in perpetuity, a cost that has been included in the reclamation estimate of $558-million.

Teck has fully funded its liability obligation at Red Dog by posting a bond of $558-million with the State, said Allan, a former ICBC president and senior economist for B.C. Central Credit Union.

Just across the border in B.C., Teck, the largest mining company in the province, is responsible for 13 mines — six operating and seven closed — and the province has estimated reclamation liability at $1.4-billion, but has required only $510-million in bonding, according to Allan’s brief.

“The $1.4-billion reclamation estimate excludes significant requirements for ongoing water treatment, such as those at Teck’s coal mining sites in the Elk Valley. Teck’s in perpetuity liabilities are likely underestimated by hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said.

Teck Resources is the largest donor to the B.C. Liberals, contributing $1,502,444 to the party since 2008.

Since 2010, Norman Keevil, Teck board chair, has personally donated $65,585 and DeSmog Canada revealed last month that political donations to the Liberals made under the name of a Teck Resources lobbyist were actually made by the company and were registered in error.

B.C.’s Mining Sector ‘Dysfunctional’

Allan, in her brief, says environmental assessment, monitoring and compliance of B.C.’s mining sector is dysfunctional.

“It places the environment and the public on both sides of the Canadian and U.S. borders at serious long-term risk,” she wrote.

A recent report by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre found B.C.’s mining rules have created a profound crisis of public confidence and should be investigated through a Commission of Public Inquiry.

“Mine reclamation liabilities in B.C. are underestimated and most mine operators are not required to provide full funding for the reclamation obligations that are estimated,” she said.

If B.C. adopted the Alaskan model of reclamation estimation and bonding, it would result in a more comprehensive and robust approach, according to Allan, who added in her brief that such changes could be made through policy adjustments rather than legislation.

Neither Alaska nor B.C. have an industry-funded pool for cleaning up accidental environmental damage or for paying compensation to those affected by mining accidents and companies are not required to have adequate insurance to cover accidents.

That begs the question why the mining industry is treated differently from other high-risk industries such as oil and gas, said Hardcastle, who believes the cross-border problem should be referred to the International Joint Commission, which operates under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty.

Allan agrees that both federal governments need to work together to develop measures to ensure mines do not affect downstream resources and that there should be an industry-funded pool for reclamation costs and compensation not met by mine operators following an unintended environmental accident.

However, there first needs to be accurate and transparent reclamation cost estimates and full security posted before a permit is issued, she said in her brief.

“Regrettably, the province of B.C. does not intend to enhance the requirements of its subpar system despite recommendations in recent reports released by the B.C. Auditor General and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs,” she wrote.

B.C. should also look at recent reforms Quebec made to its financial requirements for the mining sector, recommended Ugo Lapointe, Mining Watch Canada program coordinator.

Quebec requires 100 per cent financial assurance, with 50 per cent payable before the mine opens and 50 per cent in the first two years of operation, making it the strictest system in Canada, Lapointe said.

In contrast, B.C. remains one of the most problematic mining jurisdictions in the country, he said.

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British Columbia’s environmental review process simply isn’t strong enough to protect Alaskan communities and rivers from the province’s mining boom, Jill Weitz, American campaigner with Salmon Beyond Borders, recently told a panel reviewing Canada’s environmental assessment process.

Weitz, who works to protect Alaska’s wild salmon runs, traveled to Prince Rupert to tell a trio of experts appointed by the federal government how a more robust federal environmental assessment process could help address transboundary concerns arising in the wake of B.C.’s major push for new mines.

The federally appointed panel is currently reviewing the environmental assessment process managed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency which is responsible for reviewing major development projects including pipelines, oil and gas development and mines. Changes made under the previous federal government excluded major mines in British Columbia from the federal environmental assessment process — a legislative change Weitz and others say left Alaska in an uncomfortable position.

The transboundary region traversing the border of northwest B.C. and southeast Alaska is home to three major salmon rivers, the Taku, Stikine and Unuk. The rivers flow into Alaska from an area in B.C. that is home to 10 new mines either proposed or already under construction.

Weitz said one of those mines, the controversial KSM mine, is the largest open pit mine in North America.

Despite living directly downstream from the mine, Alaskans were frustratingly prevented from meaningful participation in the project’s environmental review, Weitz told DeSmog Canada.

“The project would be located 22 miles upstream from the Alaska border,” she said. “The environmental assessment process determined there would be no significant environmental impacts.”

Weitz said this assessment was made despite the fact that the term ‘environmental impacts’ was not precisely defined and there was a problematic lack of the basic information needed to measure those impacts going forward.

“Not only is the B.C. process flawed in terms of identifying whether KSM would have significant environmental impacts but the baseline data needed to say that — it doesn’t exist.”

Weitz said Salmon Beyond Borders began campaigning on the issues of transboundary watersheds and the KSM mine after Alaskans from many different backgrounds start voicing their concern about the project.

A 2014 tailings pond collapse at the Mount Polley mine raised serious concerns about B.C.’s mine management and permitting process.

Many Alaskans representing fishing, tourism and indigenous groups voiced fears that something similar to the Mount Polley disaster, which left the pristine Quesnel Lake watershed contaminated with 24 million cubic metres of mining waste, could happen in U.S. waters.

The KSM tailings pond is projected to entail a massive 239-metre tailings dam, perched above the Bell Irving/Nass watershed in B.C. near the Sulpherets Creek, which runs into the Unuk River.

“We continue to push on the notion that there needs to be further transboundary watershed management in a shared way,” Weitz said.

In her presentation to the environmental assessment review panel, Weitz made the case that legislative changes made under the former Harper government that narrowed the purview of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act increased the threat felt by southeast Alaskans.

Projects that have immediate implications for transboundary watersheds should automatically trigger federal environmental assessments, Weitz argued, saying the provincial process in B.C. is not comprehensive enough and does not consider cumulative impacts of industrialization in the region — a top concern for many scientists and conservation groups.

Weitz said although B.C. invited the participation of Alaskans in the KSM mine assessment, she felt like their input was ultimately ignored.

Provincial approval of the KSM mine in 2014 angered many Alaskans. Fifteen federally registered native tribes, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations, made formal requests for a joint provincial-federal review of the project’s approval.

That request was denied.

“There is no equity in this process,” Weitz said.

Nikki Skuce, who also presented to the panel on behalf of the Northern Confluence initiative out of Smithers, B.C., said even British Columbians feel the provincial review system is inadequate.

“Some of us here in the northwest have participated in some really faulty review processes,” Skuce told DeSmog Canada.

“In some cases it’s clear the decision on the project is made even before the process begins so these processes feel very tokenistic and often rely entirely on information from industry.”

Skuce said a serious review of Canada’s environmental assessment process should take into consideration how domestic projects can affect cross-border communities.

“For folks in southeast Alaska, if we’re going to consider impacting a water or airshed upstream, there should be a federal review where there is greater opportunity for those downstream or down-air communities.”

Skuce said Canada’s federal review process should honour international commitments, like Canada’s pledge to engage in a bilateral process to manage transboundary waters.

Skuce says improvements to the federal environmental assessment process could help restore public trust in the review system.

“This process should prioritize indigenous rights that Canada has promised to honour under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Skuce said.

She added an emphasis on independent science is key to restoring trust in the process.

“We need to delineate the project proponent promoter from the project regulator,” she said.

“Right now you have the regulator cheerleading for the project. That needs to be taken out, separated out to help regain public trust.”

Skuce said she is feeling optimistic about the review of the federal environmental assessment process. The panel has worked hard to engage meaningfully with presenters, she said.

“With so many mining projects proposed in the northwest and given the potential transboundary impacts we need federal engagement,” she said.

“This is a good opportunity to look in-depth at cumulative impacts of development and at our bilateral agreement obligations with Alaska.”

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Alaska’s fishing industry and lifestyle are under threat from mines on the B.C. side of the border and a non-binding cooperation agreement between B.C. and Alaska, signed last week, does not provide sufficient protection, the Alaska State House Fisheries Committee was told this week.

The committee held a public hearing because of persistent concerns from fishermen, business owners, municipal and Tribal leaders about the proliferation of B.C. mines near the headwaters of salmon-bearing rivers such as the Taku, Unuk and Stikine, which start in B.C. and flow through Southeast Alaska to the ocean.

About 10 mines are in the planning, exploration, construction or production stages in the area close to the border.

“I believe legislators received the message loud and clear that this is a very urgent situation and much, much more needs to be done immediately, beyond the B.C./Alaska Statement of Cooperation,” said Heather Hardcastle of Salmon Beyond Borders.

The agreement between B.C. and Alaska establishes a bilateral working group and provides for Alaska to have input into environmental assessments and permitting for mines. It also formalizes requirements for B.C. to notify Alaska if there is a spill or accident that could affect Alaskan waters.

But the agreement falls short as there are no enforceable measures to protect the water and fisheries and no requirement for bonds to provide financial compensation in case of an accident, speakers told the committee.

“Alaska should require some kind of compensation for catastrophic accidents,” said Dave Chambers, geophysicist and president of the Center for Science in Public Participation.

Mining companies are under pressure to increase production because of falling metal prices and rising costs and that is leading to an increasing number of tailings dam failures, Chambers said.

Requirements for a surety would put pressure on operators to do a better job, Chambers said.

Earlier this year, B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer, in a scathing report that criticized B.C.’s weak mining liability regime, estimated that there was a $1-billion shortfall in financial assurance policies, which are supposed to ensure mining companies pay for both catastrophic events and mine site reclamation.

Bellringer’s report was followed by an even more blistering assessment by economist Robyn Allan, who, in a report commissioned by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, concluded there is more than $1.5-billion in unfunded liability.

“A regime to ensure mine owners have sufficient financial resources to pay for environmental damage and third-party losses from unintended mine accidents is non-existent,” Allan wrote.

A common theme at the Fisheries Committee hearing was a push for state leaders to formally request the involvement of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments.

“In order to have binding commitments that protect habitat, by encouraging the highest standards of environmental protection, elevation to the International Joint Commission through the Boundary Waters Treaty seems to be a necessary action,” said Chip Treinen, United Fishermen of Alaska board member.

So far, B.C.’s Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have shown little interest in referring the issue to the International Joint Commission, the body established to deal with boundary water disputes.

Last week Bennett said that “We’ve proven with this agreement and all the work we’ve done over the last three years there’s no need for the International Joint Commission” and that neither B.C. nor Alaska want to get their respective federal governments involved in an issue they can manage themselves.

At the hearing, Hardcastle said Bennett is “flat-out wrong” in his assumptions.

“The State Legislature and the State of Alaska need to formally counter Bennett’s statement and be explicit with the U.S. federal government that this is an international matter in which the State of Alaska does want and need the critical involvement of the federal government,” she said.

Bennett and Energy and Mines Ministry spokespeople did not respond to questions Friday from DeSmog Canada.

Bev Sellars, chairwoman of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and Chief of the Xat’sull First Nation in Soda Creek, B.C., warned Alaska’s legislators not to put all their trust in the B.C. government, pointing to a bad track record, and urged them to ask the International Joint Commission to become involved.

“Try to get a solid country-to-country agreement on paper,” she said.

“I haven’t eaten fish from the Fraser River in years — that is a loss of our culture. When I hear about B.C. mines I worry about your culture too,” she said.

The spectre of the 2014 Mount Polley disaster, when the tailings dam collapsed spilling 24-million cubic metres of waste and sludge into nearby lakes and rivers, weighs heavily on Alaskans.

“We’re terrified that that’s what is going to happen here and that we’re going to share their fate,” said Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

“We couldn’t sustain our traditional way of life. We couldn’t sustain our economic way of life if that happened.”

A recent study by the McDowell Group concluded that the Taku, Stikine and Unuk rivers account for U.S. $48-million in annual economic activity and the value of the three watersheds is just under $1-billion over a 30-year timeframe.

Chambers said he questions B.C.’s mine safety enforcement.

“Presently the B.C. government is not putting safety before economics as recommended by the Mount Polley Expert Panel, Chambers said.

“Moreover, B.C. is not implementing other key recommendations of the Mount Polley Expert Panel — a body appointed by the province to determine what went wrong at Mount Polley and how to avoid similar tailings dam failures in the future.”

The hearing was chaired by Rep. Louise Stutes, who said the committee is likely to hold more hearings to assess the possible effects of the mines.

In an interview with the Cordova Times, shortly before the public hearing, Stutes said: “The United States and Canadian federal governments need prodding to secure enforceable protections and financial assurances for our transboundary rivers.”

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Cleanup of the troubled Tulsequah Chief mine in northwest B.C., which has leaked acidic water into nearby streams and rivers for more than six decades, is again in limbo following an announcement by the owner, Toronto-based Chieftain Metals Inc., that the company is in receivership.

Chieftain, in a statement, said the accounting firm Grant Thornton “was appointed through court order as the receiver of all the assets, undertakings and properties of Chieftain.” The majority of company directors have resigned.

The court order came after a demand by West Face Capitol for repayment of a $26-million loan.

Chieftain’s properties include 65 mineral claims, but the company’s principal focus was development of the Tulsequah Chief, which it bought in 2010. At that time, Chieftain accepted responsibility for the long overdue environmental cleanup, but an interim water treatment plant operated for only six months and was closed in 2012 because of costs and technical issues.

The mine is situated beside the Tulsequah River, the largest tributary to the Taku, one of Alaska’s most important salmon rivers, and the continuing acid mine drainage has infuriated Southeast Alaskans who point to the pollution as a major reason not to trust B.C.’s rules and oversight of mines being developed along the B.C./Alaska border.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders said the Tulsequah Chief is a poster child for downstream concerns at a time of growing demands from Southeast Alaskans for Alaska and the U.S. State Department to work together to obtain guarantees that B.C.’s mining development won’t harm water quality, fisheries or livelihoods downstream in Alaska.

“If B.C. can’t ensure that the Tulsequah Chief is cleaned up, why should Alaskans have any trust that much larger mines like KSM won’t pollute our waters?” asked Zimmer, who is demanding that the B.C. government step in and clean up the site, rather than relying on mining companies to clean up the site.

The KSM mine, about 35 kilometres from the Alaska border, which will tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world, is one of about a dozen B.C. mines in the transboundary areas in various stages of application, planning and development.

Last year, Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett flew over the Tulsequah Chief mine site and promised that the mess would be cleaned up. However, he then appeared to backtrack, saying scientists did not believe the acid mine drainage was causing any environmental harm.

That is a claim disputed by many of the Southeast Alaskan organizations, tribes and politicians anxiously watching the proliferation of B.C. mines near salmon rivers flowing into Southeast Alaska and there are growing demands for the U.S. federal government to step in and refer the issue of transboundary mines to the International Joint Commission.

“The size of the watersheds and valuable fisheries at risk and the growing evidence that neither B.C. nor its mining industry can be trusted, clearly shows Alaska cannot go it alone with B.C.,” Zimmer said.

“We need the help of the U.S. federal government and the authority of the Boundary Waters Treaty to ensure that B.C. and its mining industry pay for the true costs of mining rather than risking fisheries and water quality downstream,” he said.

The Tulsequah Chief was closed by Cominco in 1957 without any cleanup or reclamation of the site. It was bought by Redfern Corp. in 1992, but numerous government warnings and reclamation orders were ignored and Redfern filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

“Since the mining companies have been unable to halt the acid mine drainage, it’s time for B.C. to honour the promises made by Minister Bill Bennett last August and clean up this mess,” Zimmer said.

Energy and Mines Ministry spokesmen could not be contacted by time of publication.

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Acid mine drainage from the Tulsequah Chief mine in northwest B.C. has worried and infuriated Southeast Alaskans for almost six decades and concerns have again peaked with a new analysis that claims a study of runoff — that found the drainage would not affect fish — was flawed.

The mine, situated beside the Tulsequah River, the largest tributary to the Taku, one of Alaska’s premium salmon rivers, was closed by Cominco in 1957 without reclamation or clean-up of acid mine drainage.

The mine was bought by Redfern Corp. but numerous government warnings and reclamation orders were ignored and Redfern filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The mine was then bought in 2010 by Toronto-based Chieftain Metals Inc., which accepted environmental liabilities as part of the purchase price.

Hopes that the drainage problems would be addressed were short-lived and an interim water treatment plant that operated for only six months was closed in June 2012 because of costs and technical issues.

The only consolation for those worried about the effect of toxic runoff on salmon, was a study, ordered by the province and conducted for Chieftain in 2013, that concluded that, although significant levels of copper and zinc were found downstream from the mine, the drainage posed a low risk to fish in the Tulsequah River and that the discharge did not affect the Taku River as Tulsequah water was diluted by a factor of six when mixed with Taku waters.

“Chieftain Metals is of the opinion that the extent of aquatic environmental risk is very low for the majority of the year and low to moderate during the winter and spring thaw,” Chieftain Metals CEO Victor Wyprysky wrote in a 2013 letter to the provincial Ministry of Environment.

However, that study is now being questioned by a new analysis, conducted for Rivers Without Borders, that has found problems with the way information was collected.

“Consequently, the conclusion of low risk to aquatic life from Tulsequah Chief mine acid mine drainage is unreliable,” says the report by fisheries biologist Sarah O’Neal.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders, one of the many Alaskan organizations, tribes and politicians that have been watching the recent proliferation of B.C. mines close to the Alaskan border with trepidation, said the Chieftain study is fundamentally flawed and cannot be used to delay clean-up of the polluting mine any longer.

In a question-and-answer interview with the Juneau Empire, Bennett said: “I said I’m going to try to fix it, so I’m going to try to fix it. It’s a horribly difficult and complex issue for B.C., because the scientists on both sides of the border say there isn’t any environmental harm from what’s going into the Tulsequah River. We have limited resources.”

DeSmog Canada received no response to numerous phone calls and emails to both the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines and Chieftain Metals.

In November, B.C. and Alaska signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cross-border consultation on major mine developments and to develop a joint water monitoring program for transboundary waters.

The Tulsequah Chief should be one of the first issues addressed and, as it seems unlikely that Chieftain has the wherewithal or financial resources to clear up the problem, it is up to B.C. and the Canadian federal government to step in, especially as questions are again being raised about damage from the runoff, Zimmer said.

“It’s time to seal up this festering sore. If Chieftain can’t do it, then B.C. needs to step up. Alaskans concerned about B.C. mining across the transboundary region see the Tulsequah Chief as a test case of how B.C. will deal with other mines,” Zimmer said.

“So far, B.C. is failing the test and Alaskans have real reason for worry. If B.C. can’t deal with this relatively small mine, how will it deal with massive mines like KSM?”

“Chieftain and B.C. have both a legal and moral responsibility to clean this up,” Zimmer said, pointing to Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett who, while he was visiting Alaska last year, initially pledged to clean up the mess and then backtracked, pointing to the Chieftain study.

The KSM mine, about 35 kilometres from the Alaska border, which will tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world, is one of about 10 mines close to the Alaska/B.C. transboundary region in various stages of applications, planning and development.

This week a delegation of tribal leaders, commercial fishing groups and conservation organizations from Alaska was in Ottawa looking for help from federal politicians in giving Alaska a bigger say in mine development in shared waters.

The group, who will also meet with Bruce Heyman, U.S. ambassador to Canada, wants the issue referred to the International Joint Commission, which was created under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, to deal with disputes in shared waters.

“We wanted to get our request in the radar before Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama meet here in Ottawa later this month as part of the North American summit,” Heather Hardcastle, from Salmon Beyond Borders, told DeSmog Canada.

Currently Alaska, as the downstream neighbour, takes all the risks associated with mines in B.C., she said.

“It is increasingly clear that it will take our two countries working together to decide how to manage our globally significant share of this iconic region,” Hardcastle added.

Years of trying to get the B.C. government to address concerns have produced nothing but nice words and vague promises, said Frederick Otilius Olsen Jr., chairman of the United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group, representing 15 Southeast Alaska Tribes.

“We seem to be getting nowhere,” Olsen, a member of the delegation to Ottawa, said.

“Facts, reports and studies keep emerging — the latest from B.C.’s Auditor General — that indicate the situation is even worse than we feared. We need federal help and an international solution to this international problem.”

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