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

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

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

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

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

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

Seabridge is a developer, not a miner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will KSM require permanent water treatment?

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

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

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

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

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

Will KSM mine make water cleaner?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nisga’a and Gitanyow on KSM mine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is smaller better?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving targets

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

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

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

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

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

Air of inevitability around big northwest mines

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

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

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

The Narwhal Seabridge Questions by The Narwhal on Scribd

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

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

Frustrated U.S. representatives on a commission tasked with protecting the quality of water flowing across the Canada/U.S. border have gone public with claims that Canadian commissioners are refusing to accept scientific data that shows an increase in selenium pollution from B.C.’s Elk Valley coal mines.

Two U.S. commissioners on the International Joint Commission have released a letter to the U.S. State Department that says Canada’s three representatives on the commission will not endorse a recent report that shows risks to aquatic life and humans from selenium pollution from five Teck Resources Ltd. coal mines.

It’s a highly unusual move, suggesting a rift among the usually non-partisan representatives of the international body.

The polluted water, which leaches from massive amounts of waste rock at Teck’s metallurgical coal mines, flows into the Elk and Fording Rivers in B.C., then into the Koocanusa Reservoir which straddles the border and finally into the U.S. Kootenai River before curling back up into Canada at Creston.

Teck’s five metallurgical coal mines are all upstream of the transboundary Koocanusa Reservoir.

“In addition to the short-term impacts, it is well understood that high concentrations of selenium will have long lasting impacts on water quality, fish, other aquatic species, wildlife and human health in southeast B.C. and northwestern Montana communities,” says the letter from Lana Pollock, chair of the commission’s U.S. section, and commissioner Rich Moy.

“These impacts could become permanent.”

In addition to selenium, other significant pollutants from the exposed waste rock include nitrates, sulfates and cadmium.

The two Canadians on the commission are Gordon Walker, a non-practicing Toronto lawyer, and Montreal government and private sector consultant Richard Morgan. Decisions made by the International Joint Commission are non-binding, but usually accepted by governments.

A commission spokesperson could not be contacted prior to publication.

Canadian commissioners accused of seeking to exclude recent data

The study creating the rift looks at selenium impacts on human health and took six years of work by contractors and commission staff, but the Canadian contingent wanted to submit an earlier report that excluded recent data from Teck and Environment and Climate Change Canada, says the letter.

“Canadian Commissioners have not been willing to submit a report that addresses selenium pollution in transboundary waters of the Kootenai River drainage,” said the letter, which points out that selenium will continue to pollute the Elk and Kootenai transboundary waters for hundreds of years if no solution is found.

“U.S. Commissioners have been unwilling to endorse a report that lacks accurate and available information relevant to health impacts in the transboundary Elk/Koocanusa watersheds from the Teck coal mines,” the letter further stated.

Studies have found that high selenium concentrations are resulting in deformities and reproductive failure in trout and fish mortality of up to 50 per cent in some portions of the Elk watershed, according to Pollock and Moy.

In 2014 Teck introduced the $600 million Line Creek water treatment plant to address selenium pollution but the facility unintentionally released a more bioavailable form of selenium into the watershed. After four months of operation the facility caused a substantial fish kill and in 2017 the company pled guilty to violations of the federal Fisheries Act and was ordered to pay a $1.4 million fine.

The water treatment plant remains offline as Teck seeks a solution.

“There is a question as to whether the technology even exists to remove selenium from large volumes of flowing water and there is no viable solution to remove selenium from groundwater,” the commissioners wrote.

Canada at risk of breaching treaty over lack of action

As a final kicker, the letter says B.C.’s negligence in addressing the mining impacts puts Canada at risk of violating the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

That is a conclusion also drawn in 2016 by B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer, who, in a scathing report, said the Environment Ministry has been monitoring dramatic increases in selenium levels in the Elk Valley for 20 years, but, with a lack of regulatory oversight, has taken no substantive action to solve the problem and has not publicly disclosed the risks of continuing to issue permits for coal mines in the Elk Valley.

“As selenium accumulates up the food chain, it can affect the development and survival of birds and fish and may also pose health risks to humans,” Bellringer wrote.

Teck spokesman Chris Stannell said the company worked with governments, Indigenous groups and scientific experts to come up with the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, which is “a comprehensive, long-term approach to address the management of selenium and other substances released by mining activities throughout the Elk Valley watershed.”

Extensive monitoring has found selenium and other substances are not affecting fish populations, Stannell said.

However, in their letter to the U.S. state department commissioners Pollack and Moy found selenium pollution has resulted in “deformities and reproductive failure in trout and increasing fish mortality of up to 50 per cent in some portions of the Elk and Fording watersheds.”

In addition, they write, “mine pollutants are poisoning and killing off the more sensitive species of macro-invertebrates downstream of the mines.”

Instead of improving water quality, Teck’s Line Creek Treatment facility may have made it worse, Pollack and Moy found.

Stannel said the company will invest between $850 million and $900 million during the next five years towards construction of water treatment facilities, the second of which is now under construction.

Critics point out that it is clear that Teck is unable to meet commitments made in the Water Quality Plan, such as selenium, nitrate and sulphate levels and that the company’s previous water treatment plant remains shut down. They also point out much of Teck’s raw baseline data on selenium contamination is not made available to the public, a hazard of the province’s professional reliance system, which is currently under review.

Teck is also a frequent flyer on the province’s environmental enforcement penalty list, most recently showing up on the list for the last six months of 2017 which shows three penalties, with fines of $78,100, for failing to comply with an effluent discharge permit and then failing to report the problem.

Teck has received about $2 million in fines and penalties for various provincial and federal environmental violations over the past five years, said Environment Ministry spokesman David Karn.

“The ministry has heightened compliance attention in the Elk Valley and all of Teck Coal’s operations are inspected at a minimum of once per year, with the Valley Wide Permit inspected approximately 10 times per year,” he said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal.

While levels for selenium, nitrate and sulphate appear to be stabilizing in the Koocanusa Reservoir and Elk River, Teck was recently found to be out of compliance with selenium levels at Lake Koocanusa and the file has been sent to the Conservation Officer Service for investigation, Karn said.

The ministry is aware of meetings taking place in Washington, D.C. between the U.S. State Department and Global Affairs Canada to discuss the selenium issue, Karn said.

Also, B.C. and Montana are developing an agreement to work through a monitoring and research committee to set a water quality objective for selenium for the Koocanusa reservoir,” he said.

“Presently, the selenium guidelines set by Montana are being met in the reservoir, but future targets are expected to be lower,” he said.*

“What we need to do is hold the company accountable for the damages.”

-Erin Sexton, biologist

Erin Sexton, senior scientist at the Flathead Lake Biological Station at the University of Montana, is encouraged the commissioners have spoken out.

“This is the first time I have ever seen something from a sitting commissioner. They have a long history of being a non-partisan, scientific body and it says to me that all the data on this watershed needs to be publicly available and open for analysis,” said Sexton.

“What I read is an accusation that the Canadian commissioners have been omitting data from what are supposed to be non-partisan reports,” she said.

Sexton is hoping the dispute does not disintegrate into finger-pointing between the two countries and that governments realize that the watersheds must be managed as a whole, regardless of boundaries.

“Really what we need to do is hold the company accountable for the damages. It looks to me like we have a bad actor here in Teck Coal and that we have a regulatory government that has been asleep at the wheel,” she said.

Sexton, who has sat in on some permitting processes, said B.C. missed a clear opportunity in 2014 when Teck wanted to expand the mines.

The province could have pressed pause and refused to issue expansion permits until the company was able to demonstrate that water quality would be improved, she said.

“Instead Teck received permits for four of their five mine expansions. Now it’s 2018 and we are looking at increasingly worse water quality trends,” said Sexton, who would like to see a hold on mining until solutions are found.

Passive water treatment, instead of water treatment plants, is probably the way forward and that means keeping waste rock out of the river, but it is difficult to achieve on the huge scale that would be necessary in the Elk Valley — and restoration would be expensive, Sexton said.

Three applications for coal mines from other companies are currently in the initial stages, and it is extraordinary that B.C. is considering allowing more mines in the area when all the levels show pollution in the watershed is far beyond the limits for protecting aquatic life, Sexton said.

‘We have centuries of pollution ahead of us’

Randal Macnair, Wildsight conservation coordinator for the Elk Valley, said the industry is spending money in an attempt to solve the problem, but government should take a stronger role in protecting the rivers, especially after seeing the auditor general’s report.

“Industry is going to do what industry does, but government needs to really stand up and pay attention — both the federal and provincial governments,” said Macnair, who is hoping the commissioners’ letter will make a difference.

“This is one of the oldest treaties between our two countries, so this is something we have to take extremely seriously. We have made commitments and if the proverbial shoe was on the other foot, we wouldn’t want our American neighbours sending contaminated water into our water courses,” he said.

“We have a moral obligation to take care of the resources around us.”

Ugo Lapointe of MiningWatch Canada wants the NDP government to launch a public inquiry into why the problem was not addressed for more than a decade.

“They have to make sure they never repeat the same mistake in any other B.C. watershed and, we need to get to the bottom of the Elk Valley disaster. We have centuries of pollution ahead of us and we need to know how the regulatory regime failed,” said Lapointe, adding that the first step should be a moratorium on any mining expansion in the valley.

Problems in the Elk Valley echo concerns of residents of Southeast Alaska who, for decades, have been faced with B.C.’s Tulsequah Chief Mine leaching acid mine drainage into a tributary of the salmon-rich Taku River.

Alaskans now watch with trepidation as 11 mines are proposed or already permitted near the B.C./Alaska border.

Groups such as Salmon Beyond Borders have asked the International Joint Commission to investigate threats from the B.C. mines, saying lack of oversight from B.C. puts Alaskans at risk of having to cope with the destruction of salmon runs, but, so far, the request for the commission’s intervention has not been successful.

US IJC Commissioners Letter to Dept of State on Selenium Report by The Narwhal on Scribd

*Update: July 5, 2018 11:41am pst. This article was updated to include comment from B.C. Environment Ministry spokesperson David Karn.

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 continuous flow of dangerous pollution from B.C.’s Elk Valley coal mines into a Montana watershed is a top discussion item for Canadian and U.S. delegates convening at a bilateral meeting in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

Selenium from five metallurgical coal mines owned and operated by Teck Resources has been leaching into B.C.’s Elk River and flowing southeast into Montana’s Kootenai River watershed for decades. Contamination levels measured in U.S. waters exceeds maximum concentration limits outlined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Selenium is released from waste rock piled at Teck’s large-scale open-pit coal mines, where rainfall and snowmelt draw it into the Elk and Fording Rivers. Selenium can be harmful to biological organisms at even small amounts and causes deformities in fish and birds.

Michael Jamison, program manager with the National Park Conservation Association’s Glacier Field Office in Montana, said it’s a good sign the pollution of the transboundary watershed is on the bilateral agenda.

“People have been discussing the transboundary water issue between B.C. and Montana as a potential agenda item for the bilaterals for over a decade,” Jamison told DeSmog Canada. “They’re finally there.”

The decades-old problem of contamination received new attention from top U.S. officials, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who vowed to put pressure on his Canadian counterparts to address the ongoing pollution problem.

Montana Senator Jon Tester has been raising the profile of the issue for years, saying the Kootenai watershed, which is a popular spot for recreational fishing and outdoor activity, is threatened by B.C.’s pollution.

Tester pushed for the Kootenai to be included in the recent U.S. government-spending bill, signed by President Donald Trump, which lists reducing the pollution flowing into the watershed as a budget priority.

“It seems like there’s some traction here that we’ve been missing for some time,” Jamison said.

“But this is what baffles me — it’s bad enough that us in Montana, the U.S. State Department and tribes on this side of the border are prioritizing it. But it must be so much worse farther north.”

“I guess I don’t understand how B.C. puts up with that.”

Teck was the single largest donor to the BC Liberal party, which governed B.C. for 16 years until last year. Between 2008 and 2017, the company gave $1.5 million to the BC Liberals. The company also donated $60,000 to the B.C. NDP in that same period.

Teck’s ongoing selenium nightmare

The reality of Teck’s selenium problems have unfolded over the last decade as the company has tried — unsuccessfully — to introduce an effective water treatment facility.

In October 2017 Teck pled guilty to three violations of the federal Fisheries Act for its pollution of the Elk River and was fined $1.4 million for a 2014 fish kill near the company’s Line Creek wastewater treatment plant.

The $600 million water treatment plant had only been in operation for four months when the fish kill — which included local bull trout, a species of special concern — occurred.

An expert report prepared for Environment Canada in 2014 found selenium poisoning caused spinal, head and skull deformities, missing fins and disfigured gill plates in fish eggs brought to laboratories to be hatched.

“As these surface mines have expanded, so has the volume of their selenium-laden water discharges to nearby stream and rivers,” Dr. Dennis Lemly, research associate professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, wrote in his report.

Lemly warned the Elk River watershed was at a tipping point and that further increases in selenium concentrations could lead to a “total population collapse of sensitive species such as westslope cutthroat trout.”

Erin Sexton, senior scientist with the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station told DeSmog Canada that B.C. has granted permits for Elk Valley mines that allow for selenium levels ranging from 70 micrograms per litre to 19 micrograms per litre while the provincial criteria for protection of aquatic life is 2 micrograms per litre.

U.S. EPA regulations limit acceptable selenium pollution levels to 1.5 micrograms per litre.

Jamison said the rules don’t seem to apply to Teck’s mining operations in B.C. even after the company has been found to be in violation of provincial regulations.

“The regulators up north said, ‘nah that’s cool. As long as you promise you can fix it, you get your permit,’ ” he said.

“Whereas down here we have different methods to review, permit, monitor and regulate mines. And there’s not a lot of wiggle in it.”

“The lines seem to be drawn in ink on the U.S. side, and in pencil on the Canadian side.”

In the fall of 2017 Teck shut down the Line Creek water treatment plant after it found the facility was releasing a more bioavailable and thus more toxic form of selenium into the region’s waterways. Teck has since notified the B.C. government the treatment plant will be offline until 2018.

“Teck has invested millions in multiple treatment technologies, and at least twice they have shut down their one and only treatment plant, due to impacts to fish,” Sexton told DeSmog Canada.

“First for a fish kill, and now for a technology ‘error’ resulting in bio-concentration of selenium in the wastewater — the exact opposite intent of the treatment.”

Sexton, who has studied transboundary water quality for the last decade, said Teck and the B.C. government have not been forthcoming with their data on these issues.

“Frankly, we collected our own data in the Elk River system — the Flathead Lake Biological Station collected data for water quality and bugs — and Montana Fish and Game collected data for fish — because of the lack of data availability, transparency, and scientific objectivity that has characterized this issue for over a decade,” she said.

B.C. Minister of Environment George Heyman was unable to provide comment by time of publication.

“The lines seem to be drawn in ink on the U.S. side, and in pencil on the Canadian side.” https://t.co/f5UhxC79WC

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 26, 2018

Mine permits issued despite Teck’s prolonged pollution problems

Dave Hadden, executive director of Headwaters Montana, said he’s pleased to see the Kootenai listed on the bilateral agenda, but is concerned neither short-term nor long-term solutions are clearly at hand.

“This is a multi-century problem,” Hadden told DeSmog Canada. “The problem is not going to go away and there needs to be a mechanism that finds a solution for addressing a multi-century problem that is fair to Canada, fair to the U.S. and that provides mitigation for these impacts.”

Headwaters Montana is one of a coalition of groups asking B.C. follow international water quality standards before new Elk Valley coal mines are approved.

Lars Sander-Green from B.C. conservation group Wildsight said B.C. actively grants permits and approvals to Teck that not only maintain operations but allow for expansion.

“It’s more than just up and running. In order to continue mining and exporting coal they continue to expand their footprint, which means expanding their waste rock piles and the selenium problem,” he told DeSmog Canada.

A 2016 report from B.C. auditor general Carol Bellringer found it concerning that permits were granted to Teck Resources to expand its Line Creek Mine after staff at the Ministry of Environment found an expansion of the mine would exacerbate selenium pollution problems.

At the time, the BC Liberals granted a permit for the expansion invoking — for the first time in B.C. history — section 137 of the Environmental Management Act, which allows government to introduce waste into the environment if deemed in the public interest.

“Perhaps we should be looking at a temporary moratorium, additional fines or compensatory mitigation with biological offsets in other areas given the legacy of impacts they have created in the Elk,” Sexton 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.

Fish farm opponents and proponents alike are waiting with bated breath as a bill to phase out open net pen aquaculture farms in Washington State sits on Governor Jay Inslee’s desk for final approval.

If Governor Inslee signs the bill, it would mean the end of farmed Atlantic salmon reared in open net pens in every jurisdiction on the West Coast of North America — except British Columbia. Alaska practices a controversial form of salmon ranching, but the state, along with California and Oregon, does not allow open net pen fish farm operations.

As pressure mounts on Washington State, where a mere 10 fish farms are in operation, attention has turned to British Columbia where more than 100 fish farms dot the southern and central coasts.

B.C. mulls moving fish farms with expired tenures — but where?

The B.C. government is currently considering whether or not to renew the tenure of 22 operations, 18 of which are clustered in the Broughton Archipelago, a narrow wild salmon migratory route between the mainland and Vancouver Island where local First Nations have historically opposed the aquaculture industry.

A spokesperson from Inslee’s office told DeSmog Canada the Governor has “publicly stated that he supports removing non-native fish from Washington state waters.”

The e-mailed statement read: “As fish don’t respect man-made borders, it would likely have an impact on British Columbia. However, the governor’s office believes that B.C. should do what is best for the province.”

Doug Donaldson, B.C. Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development told DeSmog Canada, “we’re aware of what is happening in Washington state, which does not affect the process we’re following in B.C.”

“We’re committed to wild salmon,” the minister said via an e-mailed statement. “We’re engaged with First Nations on a government to government basis to address concerns that First Nations have with fish farms in their territories.

“What’s happening in Washington State is really exciting for those of us trying to get farms out of the water in B.C. for the last two decades,” said Aaron Hill, executive director and ecologist with Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

“There’s growing evidence that fish farms spread diseases and parasites to wild salmon and the Washington State government has recognized that and they’ve taken real action that we need B.C. to follow suit with.”

Hill said some B.C. politicians have floated moving the fish farm tenures to ocean areas outside the Broughton Archipelago, an idea he said doesn’t represent a true solution.

“Sure, you’d get these fish farms out of these migratory choke points, but they’d still be out there spreading diseases and viruses in someone else’s territory.”

When asked if the B.C. government is considering relocating farmed fish operations from the Broughton Archipelago to alternate locations, the department of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development provided a statement saying, “the province is concerned about protecting wild salmon and the migratory routes that they use and is interested in moving to closed containment where feasible.”

The state of B.C.’s salmon stocks

Pressure escalated in Washington State in August of 2017 after a net at a fish farm, owned and operated by the Canadian company Cooke Aquaculture, failed, releasing over 240,000 farmed Atlantic salmon, considered an invasive species, into the Pacific.

In February the results of a multi-agency investigation into the incident found Cooke Aquaculture failed to adequately maintain its nets, which were burdened 100 tonnes of mussels and debris, causing a ‘reckless disregard’ for the state’s waters and people.

The report was swiftly followed by proposed legislation to phase-out the industry.

State senator, Democrat Kevin Ranker, said Washington’s efforts will be less effective if B.C. doesn’t follow suit.

“The salmon, the orca whale, the ecosystem doesn’t recognize the international boundary,” Ranker told the Canadian Press.

“So what we have to do is manage our transboundary region in a responsible way. And I hope Washington state will pass this legislation and move in this direction and I hope that British Columbia will do the same.”

In B.C., where wild salmon stocks have been in a precipitous decline for several years, critics say not enough has been done to monitor stocks and eliminate threats.

The 2012 Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, headed by Justice Bruce Cohen, cost taxpayers more than $37 million and made 75 recommendations designed to save wild salmon runs after the disastrous 2009 sockeye run.

But according to Watershed Watch Salmon Society, very few of those recommendations have been acted on, including the removal of fish farms from the Inside Passage if they’re found to represent even a minimal risk to wild salmon.

“There’s this huge range of threats to our salmon runs and the viruses and parasites from salmon farms are something we can actually do something about. We can actually remove that threat,” Hill said.

“It’s not the only thing. It’s not a silver bullet but it’s an important thing we can do.”

Stan Proboszcz, science and campaign advisor with Watershed Watch, said the need to help wild stocks rebound is becoming more urgent.

“Just look at the recent announcement with regard to Fraser sockeye: 8 of the 24 populations are listed as endangered. Those fish swim directly through the migratory bottleneck that is filled with samlon farms that amplify parasites and diseases.”

“Removing salmon farms from wild salmon migration routes would go a long way.”

Proboszcz pointed to a 2008 bipartisan provincial report that recommended the aquaculture industry be transitioned to closed containment.

“I think the biggest barrier to be quite honest is political leadership — and not just currently but for a long time.”

Farmed Atlantic salmon in a closed containment land-based fish farm, Kuterra, run by the ‘Namgis First Nation in Port McNeill. Photo: Kuterra

Land-based fish farms ‘the answer’: First Nations chief

Don Svanvik, chief counsellor for ‘Namgis First Nation, said it’s clear to him the future of salmon farming in B.C. is land-based.

“It’s the answer,” Svanvik told DeSmog Canada. “The godfather of all of this — Norway — is even moving to land-based farms now.”

“If you look at the history of fish farms in Norway, all the trouble they’ve had with disease and sea lice, it’s no wonder they’re going on land. And all the problems they’ve had there we’re having here now.”

Svanvik said when it comes to land-based fish farming in B.C., his nation has already proven it’s feasible.

Kuterra, an onland closed containment fish farming system, is owned and operated in Port McNeill by the ‘Namgis.

Josephine Mrozewski, spokesperson for Kuterra, said the operation is the primary example in North America of the promise of land-based Atlantic salmon farming.

Started in March 2013, Kuterra began selling land-farmed salmon on the market in April of 2014.

“When we started it was to prove out the viability of the biology, the technology and the business case for doing things this way,” Mrozewski said. “We really have fulfilled our mission.”

Kuterra, which was started with philanthropic funding, is now seeking outside investment to scale up production.

Salmon harvest at Kuterra. Photo courtesy of Kuterra.

The company produces 300 tonnes of farmed salmon each year but estimates it needs to get to 1,200 tonnes to be profitable.

B.C. has a huge advantage when it comes to developing a land-based aquaculture industry, Mrozewski said, because much of the infrastructure and expertise is already in place.

“What is adding urgency is the U.S. is catching up quickly.”

A single Florida facility in development is expected to produce as much land-based salmon as is produced in all of B.C. waters as early as 2020.

A surprising amount of salmon can be produced in on-land facilities, Mrozewski said, estimating all of B.C.’s open net operations could be reproduced in a single facility less than half the size of Stanley Park.

“Our footprint is very small. But it does take a lot of money,” she said, adding costs are declining now that ventures like Kuterra have smoothed the learning curve.

The ‘Namgis have recently appealed to the courts for an injunction to prevent Marine Harvest from restocking its operation near Swanson Island.

All three parties in B.C. have emphasized the importance of protecting wild salmon.

“But we need to see meaningful action soon,” Proboszcz said. “Otherwise we’re just going to keep hearing horror stories in the news.”

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Canadian governments are sitting by and watching as endangered species disappear, in what one environmental lawyer calls a “slow moving catastrophe.”

The latest blow comes as a deadline for provinces to outline plans to protect threatened caribou habitat blew by without a single province meeting the deadline.

“This is 13 years after this species was listed as threatened. There’s been 13 years of decline of caribou, 13 years of deterioration of their habitat,” Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon told DeSmog Canada.

Caribou were first listed as threatened under Canada’s Species At Risk Act in 2004. It took eight years and litigation to get the federal government to come up with a recovery strategy, as required under law. That federal strategy ended up pushing the responsibility back to the provinces.

It’s been a similar story with British Columbia’s endangered orca. The northern and southern residents were listed as threatened and endangered respectively in 2003. It took the federal government five years to come up with a recovery strategy.

That recovery strategy identified critical habitat, which should have been protected within 180 days by law. But the government didn’t take action, so Ecojustice took the feds to court, where they won in 2012.

The problem is that even since the court ruling forced the federal government to issue a protection order, things haven’t improved.

“They seem to have felt that they have carte blanche to continue to destroy the habitat of an endangered species,” Nixon said.

How the U.S. manages endangered species

Protests from industry and the provinces and a lack of enforcement from the federal government has created gridlock. But Canada need look no further than the U.S. to see that endangered species can be managed more effectively.

“The U.S. has run a successful industrial economy for 40 years under the Endangered Species Act,” Nixon said. “For some reason, we have this notion in Canada that that would never work here, that it’d just shut down industry if we paid attention to the needs of at-risk species. We need only look south of the border to see that’s not true.”

The Endangered Species Act became law in the U.S. in 1973, 31 years before Canada enacted similar legislation.

“I think the biggest lesson from the U.S. is that it takes some time to turn species around, it takes decades, but it does happen eventually if you protect and restore habitat,” Nixon said.

Catherine Kilduff, a senior attorney with the Centre for Biological Diversity in the U.S., said the U.S. law has teeth.

“The critical habitat provisions in the U.S. mean something. There are U.S. Supreme Court cases that say how important they are and how they really do determine how federal actions can proceed,” Kilduff told DeSmog Canada.

University of Montana biologist Erin Sexton told DeSmog Canada the key difference between Canada and the U.S. is that when critical habitat is designated in the U.S., industrial activity is essentially off the table.

In national forests in the transboundary Flathead area of northern Montana, where Sexton works, “we haven’t built a new road in decades” due to the protection of grizzly bear habitat.

All proposed projects have to pass an environmental impact assessment that considers cumulative impacts on the landscape, not just the incremental impacts of that particular project.

“We have a requirement that we look at past, present and future impacts,” says Sexton. (Canada is currently reviewing its environmental assessment process, including how it evaluates cumulative impacts.)

When asked whether changes under Trump could make the United States more like Canada in its species protection, Sexton paused.

“My initial reaction is, ‘wow, no I don’t think it can get that bad,’ ” she said.

The Trump administration just halted an oil and gas lease sale near eastern Idaho’s Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge after groups filed formal protests because fracking and drilling would threaten the greater sage grouse and violate federal conservation plans for the bird.

A brief history of Canada’s Species At Risk Act

In Canada, federal legislation to protect endangered species didn’t come into force until 2004.

Further complicating matters, under Canada’s Species At Risk Act, the federal government only takes responsibility for aquatic species and species on federal lands, while the provinces are given primary responsibility over everything else.

“There’s a much stronger assertion of federal authority in the United States,” Nixon said. “The federal government is responsible for all species.”

The problem with responsibility for endangered species falling to the provinces is that the provinces are also responsible for resource development.

“The provinces are all addicted to the short-term cash flow from the liquidation of raw resources,” Nixon said. “The federal government is removed from that resource fray, so there’s less influence on the federal government from specific companies or industries.”

The good news is the federal government does have the constitutional authority to step in and protect species at risk. The bad news is, it hasn’t exercised it yet.

“They’ve been sitting there idly while the provinces have proved they’re unwilling to protect Canada’s wildlife,” Nixon said.

Orcas vs. oil tankers

To add insult to injury, not only is Canada failing to protect the habitat of endangered species — but in many instances, it is actually making matters worse.

In B.C., the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline will create a seven-fold increase in the number of oil tankers travelling through critical habitat for endangered orca. There are just 76  southern resident orcas remaining.

In October, environmental groups took the federal government to court over its decision to grant permits for the oil pipeline.

“We have repeatedly said that Cabinet based its approval of this project on an unlawful National Energy Board report that failed to apply the Species at Risk Act and mitigate impacts on Southern Resident killer whales,” said Dyna Tuytel, a lawyer for Ecojustice.

“This chain of flawed decision-making almost guarantees the extinction of this already endangered population.”

The National Energy Board excluded adverse impacts caused by tankers from its environmental assessment, according to Karen Wristen, executive director of Living Oceans Society.

“As a result, no environmental assessment of the impacts of increased tanker traffic was undertaken,” Wristen said.

Meanwhile in Alberta, the province has been granting tenures to oil and gas companies in critical caribou habitat.

Woodland caribou can handle disturbance of about 35 per cent of their habitat. But in some of the Alberta ranges, more than 90 per cent of the caribou’s habitat has been disturbed by forestry, seismic lines, well pads, pipeline rights-of-way and oilsands projects.

Some herds are down to fewer than 100 animals.

“This is an example where the federal government and provincial government seems to be sitting and watching as a species disappears,” Nixon said.

“We could see woodland caribou disappear from Canada within a human generation, within the next 20 years, just because nobody was willing to step up.”

Ecojustice recently filed a petition with the federal environment minister in relation to several herds in northeastern Alberta, on behalf of First Nations and environmental groups.

“The ball is in the federal government’s court now. Are they willing to let the provinces do nothing?”

Provinces lack endangered species legislation

Part of the problem is that many of Canada’s provinces don’t have their own endangered species legislation.

In 1996, the provinces and the territories and the federal government signed an accord on bringing in legislation to protect endangered species. But 21 years later, Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and the Yukon still have no stand-alone legislation (PDF) on endangered species.

In B.C., the NDP government has promised to introduce endangered species legislation this term. In late November, B.C. also announced it had developed a draft agreement with the federal government on what steps will be taken over the next five years to protect the province’s southern mountain caribou — but critics are already warning the plan doesn’t go far enough.

In a letter published in the journal Science in late 2017, researchers Mark Hebblewhite and Daniel Fortin accused governments at all levels of dragging their heels for over a decade while most of Canada’s caribou populations dwindled — largely at the hands of oil and gas and forestry companies.

“If you wait long enough before doing anything, the habitat keeps getting worse, the population keeps declining,” says Fortin.

“The situation becomes so bad that there’s nothing you can do.”

— With files from Jimmy Thomson

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A leading credit rating agency’s financial downgrading of Imperial Metals Corp. is sending alarm signals through B.C. and Alaska groups concerned about the future of mines operated by the company.

Moody’s Investor Service has reassessed Imperial Metals’ “probability of default rating,” with financial analysts stating the company is at imminent risk of not being able to pay its debts. The company’s rating is “judged to be speculative, of poor standing, subject to very high default risk and may be in default on some, but not all, of their long-term debt obligations,” according to the service.

Imperial Metals, based in Vancouver, owns the Mount Polley Mine near Williams Lake — the site of the 2014 tailings pond collapse — and the Red Chris Mine, a large open-pit mine near the border of Alaska which uses the same tailings pond infrastructure as Mount Polley.

Operations at a third site owned by Imperial — the Huckleberry Mine, near Houston B.C. — have been on hold since last year because of low copper prices, according to the company website.

The company has seen its stock price plummet over the last year and recently completed a new debt financing plan after lenders granted a waiver to avoid default, according to Bloomberg News. The major shareholder is oilsands tycoon and Calgary Flames co-owner Murray Edwards, who previously helped arrange $150-million in loans for the company.

When asked about its financial situation, a company representative referred DeSmog Canada to an Imperial Metals annual report.

Communities and Taxpayers Left Holding the Bag for Bankrupt Mines

Alaskan and director of Salmon Beyond Borders said Imperial Metals’ shaky finances underline the need for binding protections for everyone living downstream from mines in transboundary watersheds.

“We know (B.C.) needs much greater financial-bonding legislation, so to find out that this company is in a dire financial position is just super troubling. We know there is no money available to reclaim the Red Chris Mine, so if the company goes bankrupt, it would be very, very troubling,” Hardcastle said in an interview.

“We need a robust financial assurances mechanism in these shared watersheds.”

ICYMI: In Photos: The Canadian Mining Boom You’ve Never Seen Before

The 2015 annual report of B.C.’s Chief Inspector of Mines (the most recent year available) shows that, like other mining companies in B.C., Imperial Metal bonds do not cover estimated liabilities.

The total bond for Mount Polley was $23.6 million, but the liability estimate is $35.3 million, for a shortfall of $11.7 million.

And that liability estimate should probably be much higher, said Ugo Lapointe, Canadian coordinator of MiningWatch Canada.

The Huckleberry bond was $37 million and the liability estimate $59 million, for a shortfall of $22 million. Red Chris posted a bond of $12 million with a liability estimate of $18 million, meaning a shortfall of at least $6 million.

So Imperial Metals has $73 million in bonding for a total reclamation estimate of at least $103 million, Lapointe said.

B.C.’s Underfunded Mines Represents Over $1 Billion Taxpayer Liability

Last year, B.C.’s Auditor General Carol Bellringer, who, in a report, slammed the B.C. government for failing to adequately monitor mines, said the fund that is supposed to cover reclamation costs is short more than $1 billion.

Another 2016 report by independent economist Robyn Allan found B.C.’s out-of-date mining regulations allow companies to chronically underfund mine remediation and disaster costs, ultimately leaving the burden to taxpayers. Allan estimates B.C. mines represent an underfunded liability of $1.5 billion.

There are over 84 abandoned contaminated industrial sites in B.C., mostly from mining, that will cost an estimated $508 million to remediate, according to the Crown Contaminated Sites Program. Responsibility for these sites falls to the province because the owners and operators of the projects “no longer exist,” according to the B.C. government.

Between 2014 and 2016 the cost of contaminated sites in B.C. rose 83.4 per cent. The spectre of financially unstable mining companies adds to the growing concern that B.C.’s mining boom along the Alaska border is occurring without regard for long-term cleanup and remediation costs.

Imperial Metals remains responsible for continuing cleanup and remediation around Mount Polley, where 24 million cubic metres of contaminated sludge and mine waste swept into lakes and rivers after the collapse of a 40-metre high tailings dam.

The Red Chris mine, which opened in late 2014 and has a 25-year lifespan, has a tailings impoundment seven times the capacity of Mount Polley.

Locals Fear Repeat of Tulsequah Chief Debacle

But Alaskans can already point to a glaring example of how badly things can go wrong when mine reclamation activities aren’t adequately funded.

The Tulsequah Chief Mine, on the Canadian side of the border, has been leaking acid mine drainage into a tributary of the salmon-rich Taku River for 60 years. After two company bankruptcies and frequent promises to clean up the mess, little has happened.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders has a sinking feeling that, if Imperial Metals gets into deep financial problems, Red Chris could be a repeat of the Tulsequah Chief.

“We saw this happen at the Tulsequah Chief where we ended up with an abandoned mine pouring acid mine drainage into the river for 60 years. That was exactly the same process,” he said.

The fears are that either the company could go bankrupt and walk away from the mess at Red Chris or, if they are short of money, they will start cutting corners, Zimmer said.

“The government needs to step in and keep a very good eye on this site and what the company is doing,” he said.

Jacinda Mack, coordinator of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and a member of the Xat’sull First Nation, is already keeping a wary eye on Imperial Metals’ finances.

“I am very concerned with this new information about Imperial Metals,” Mack told DeSmog Canada.

“Will Imperial Metals walk away from their Mount Polley Mine and abandon their responsibilities to clean up and treat the pollution from the ongoing disaster — such as what happened with owners at the Tulsequah Chief?”

“They haven’t been very forthcoming at all about this financial situation…It is really frustrating when they are ignoring things like the lake colour changing and algal blooms that never happened before,” she said.

There are many questions that need answers, such as why B.C. is not requiring Imperial Metals to pay the full cost of the Mount Polley cleanup, Mack said.

“What is B.C. going to do to ensure Imperial Metals meets health and safety requirements and their commitment to clean up Mount Polley Mine?” Mack asked.

Hardcastle is also pushing for more oversight of the transboundary mines, which are among the largest in North America.

“We need to know how we can prevent these mines from getting so far along before there are more protections in place,” she said

Alaska Politicians Pushing for Input on Transboundary Mines

The concerns are echoed by Alaska’s congressional delegation and a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, signed by Alaska Governor Bill Walker, Lt. Governor Byron Mallott, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Dan Sullivan and Congressman Don Young, says U.S. economic interests could be threatened by B.C. transboundary mining and “inadequate financial mechanisms to assure long term management of toxic wastes and redress for damages from potential releases.”

The letter emphasizes concerns about the development of large-scale hard rock mine proposals and operations in B.C. “and their potential catastrophic effects on Alaska’s communities and habitats surrounding the transboundary rivers.”

The Alaskan politicians want the State Department to push Canada for more input on transboundary mine proposals, development of a database to track cumulative effects on water quality and a decision on whether the issue should be referred to the International Joint Commission.

Mallott and Alaska tribal representatives met with B.C. officials in early November and are planning to go to Ottawa next year to hold further talks on transboundary watersheds, Mallott said in an emailed statement. He will also go to Washington in January to meet with State Department officials.

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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.

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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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Teck Resources pled guilty Thursday to three violations of the federal Fisheries Act for polluting a tributary of the Elk River and was sentenced to pay a $1,425,000 penalty into the federal Environmental Damages Fund, which will help restore fish habitat in British Columbia’s Elk Valley.

On October 16, 2014, 45 dead fish were found in Line Creek near one of Teck’s five coal mines in the region. The following day, Environment Canada investigators found waste water from a Teck water treatment plant, put in place to deal with selenium pollution, was entering Line Creek, a tributary of Elk River.

Selenium is a naturally occurring chemical element, but it can be harmful in even very tiny amounts. Selenium pollution is produced by coal, uranium and bitumen extraction and is of growing concern in Canada.

The dead fish found by Environment Canada investigators included bull trout, a species of special concern in the region. The Fisheries Act prohibits the deposit of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish.

“This failure points to much larger, longer-term water pollution issues in the Elk Valley and the Kootenay River,” Robyn Duncan, executive director of Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, told DeSmog Canada.

“While much effort has gone into tackling the issue of dangerous selenium contamination running off from waste rock dumps at the Elk Valley coal mines, the problem is still far from solved.”

Teck’s $600 million water treatment plant had been in operation for four months at the time of the fish death and was meant to provide a solution to disturbingly high selenium levels responsible for fish deformities in cutthroat trout. At the time, Teck Resources said the fish deaths may have been related to the water treatment plant coming on line.

As a result of the charges, Teck Resources — the world’s second largest exporter of steel-making coal — is required to publish information about the conviction on its website and will be listed on the Environmental Offenders Registry. Teck produces roughly 70 per cent of Canada’s exported coal.

Robin Sheremeta, senior vice president of coal at Teck Resources said the company took “full responsibility” from the outset and “recognize that we need to do better.”

“Following this occurrence in 2014, we undertook a full investigation and implemented a number of steps to ensure this does not happen again,” Sheremeta said in a statement.

The Line Creek facility is currently in operation with special features to reduce selenium and nitrate in treated water, the company said.

This is not the first time Teck Resources has been in troubel for polluting water. In February 2016 Teck Metals Limited pled guilty to a number of charges related to polluting fish bearing waters, and was fined $3 million for violations of the Fisheries Act and a further $400,000 for B.C. Environmental Management Act offences.

Teck Resources’ Legacy Selenium Pollution Problem

The Elk River Valley, known for its massive coal deposits since the 1800s has had a long time problem with selenium. But it wasn’t until the expansion of major open-pit mining operations in the 1990s that selenium pollution reached concerning levels, according to Dennis Lemly research associate professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

In a 2014 report prepared for Environment Canada, Lemly warned selenium pollution levels were high enough to threaten a complete collapse of cutthroat trout in affected waterways.

Selenium causes abnormalities and reproductive loss in fish species, Lemly said, adding data he reviewed related to selenium in the Elk River and its tributaries showed deformities in westslope cutthroat trout. Fish eggs contaminated with selenium and hatched in an Environment Canada laboratory showed fish born with deformed jaws, skulls, fins and malformed gills.

Lemly’s analysis estimated more than180,000 fish die to selenium poisoning in the Elk River and its tributaries every year.

In a 2014 interview with the Globe and Mail, Lemly said selenium pollution is often overlooked.

“How bad does it have to get? Unfortunately, you have to have the ecological equivalent of a nuclear meltdown for people to stop and say, ‘Wait a minute. We are doing more harm than good,’ ” he said, referring to a two-headed baby trout found in selenium-tainted waters in Idaho.

“It’s not a question of knowing better, it’s a question of not wanting to know.”

The Elk River drains into two bodies of water shared by B.C. and Montana — Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai River. In 2014 both were found to have high levels of selenium in the tissues of fish, causing concern among the conservation and fishing communities south of the border.

Tissue samples collected from seven species of fish in Lake Koocanusa between 2008 and 2013 showed increasing levels of selenium.

Clint Muhlfeld, an aquatic ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Glacier National Park field office, said selenium pollution entering the cross-border Kootenai River Basin is entering critical habitat of the westslope cutthroat and two endangered U.S. species: the endangered white sturgeon and bull trout.

“There are several indicators that the Elk River is nearing or has already exceeded a critical tipping point. Selenium is a ticking time bomb, and its effects are being realized all the way down the transboundary river system and into Lake Koocanusa,” Muhlfeld told the Flathead Beacon in 2014.

“This is an ecological catastrophe that is occurring, and it is not just isolated to the Elk. It is clearly impacting the entire system from the top down and it’s only going to get worse. It’s by far the biggest ecological threat facing the Northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem and the Crown of the Continent.”

Teck Resources Number One BC Liberal Donor

Teck Resources is the top donor to the BC Liberal party, which governed B.C. from 2001 to 2017. Since 2008, the company gave $1.5 million to the party. The company also donated $60,000 to the B.C. NDP in that same period.

A 2016 report from B.C. auditor general Carol Bellringer expressed concern at permits granted to Teck Resources to expand its Line Creek Mine in the Elk Valley.

Staff at the Ministry of Environment refused to issue permits after they found an expansion of the mine would exacerbate selenium pollution problems.

Cabinet stepped in, overriding ministerial staff, and granted a permit for the expansion invoking, for the first time in B.C. history, section 137 of the Environmental Management Act, which allows government to introduce waste into the environment if deemed in the public interest.

The permit was granted despite the fact that the Line Creek Expansion Permit had “a site performance objective for selenium that allows five times the amount set in B.C.’s water quality guidelines for aquatic fish.”

The auditor general found the B.C. government, in granting the permit, did not publicly disclose the implications these permit levels will have in this area. The permit extended the life of the mine for an additional 18 years, to produce an additional 3.5 million tonnes of coal annually.

Although the Ministry of Environment charged Teck Resources an annual fee of $5,000 for selenium pollution, the auditor general found, “this is not reflective of the known environmental impact of selenium.”

According to Andrew Gage, staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law, Teck appears to have benefitted from a slackening regulatory environment in B.C.

In an analysis of Teck Resources’ environmental infractions, Gage and his colleagues found the company was often spared punishment for violating environmental rules.

In 2015, for example, Teck Coal Ltd. was inspected 58 times, and was found to be acting illegally 79 per cent of the time.

For the vast majority of those inspections (89 per cent), Teck was simply issued an advisory or written warning by Ministry of Environment staff.

Gage found only five incidents in which Teck was referred for further action but no record of that action was made available on the Ministry of Environment’s website.

Over the 10-year period between 2006 and the beginning of 2016, Teck Coal Ltd. received four fines for environmental infractions, for $575 a piece.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Environmental Fines Dwarf Canada’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Our laws are that weak.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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