First Nations fish hatcheries on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are celebrating 10 years of a collaboration to help salmon blocked from migrating by dams and other threats.

Last month, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington transferred more than 6,200 chinook salmon eggs from their Chief Joseph Hatchery to the Okanagan Nation Alliance’s kł cp’elk’ stim’ Hatchery in snpink’tn (Penticton, B.C.), nearly 200 kilometres north.

This year marks one decade since the two tribal hatcheries started working together to restore the fish’s population throughout the Columbia River Basin.

The partnership has seen Colville Tribes send more than 115,000 eyed chinook eggs to the Okanagan Nation Alliance over the past 10 years. One year alone, 2019, saw 40 per cent of those eggs transferred north.

“They don’t have to do that; they don’t have to give us anything,” Tyson Marsel, a biologist at kł cp’elk’ stim’ Hatchery and member of Lower Similkameen Indian Band, said.

“But for them to recognize that this is for the betterment of the environment and conservation, it’s not only helping us, but it’s also helping them.”

As salmon grow in their eggs, the dark spots of their eyes become visible through their shells — a stage early in their development known as the “eyed eggs” period.

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Salmon have been a vital source of sustenance for Pacific Northwest Indigenous nations for thousands of years. 

But several salmon species, particularly sockeye and chinook, have seen their runs and populations severely depleted across the Columbia River Basin in the last century. 

As settlers built numerous dams along the waterway, they effectively blocked the fish from migrating up-river and into its tributaries. 

Salmon populations have also been impacted by habitat loss, overfishing and warming water temperatures linked to climate change.

Whether it’s sk’lwist (summer-run chinook) or ntitiyx (spring-run chinook), the fish have for decades become stuck at the Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia River in Washington, which lacks a fish passage route.

Opened downstream to the dam in 2013, the Chief Joseph Hatchery catches adult fish blocked by the dam to collect their eggs. It’s part of a broodstock, or fish-breeding, program that spawns nearly three million young chinook each year.

“They’ll be collecting millions of chinook eggs in a year,” Marsel said. “Versus us, our best year is 10,000 that we’ve collected from the Okanagan River here.”

The salmon eggs sent from the Colville Tribes’ hatchery roughly doubled the Okanagan Nation Alliance hatchery’s chinook population compared to last year, when it had just 6,500.

kł cp’elk’ stim’ Hatchery stores the transferred roe in an incubator, where water temperatures are gradually increased from 3 C to 10 C over the course of a few weeks, to help support their development.

The eggs donated to the kł cp’elk’ stim’ Hatchery were expected to hatch around the end of January, and the plan is to release them into Osoyoos Lake later this year, when they weigh between three and five grams. Photo: Aaron Hemens / Indiginews

The fish were expected to hatch around the end of January, and will remain housed at the hatchery until June. Once they weigh between three to five grams, the Okanagan Nation Alliance plans to release them into suwiw̓s (Osoyoos Lake).

The adult fish are expected to return between 2029 and 2031.

Although much of the Okanagan River has been channelized — engineered to straighten the waterway — there’s a more naturally flowing portion north of Osoyoos Lake, in the town of Oliver, B.C.

It’s there that Marsel said the fish like to spawn. 

Even if the fish can make it up-river past Osoyoos Lake, they’ll still reach the Chief Joseph Dam and Colville hatchery downriver.

“Some of our fish that we’ve released from our facility have gone into Chief Joseph Hatchery’s program,” Marsel said.

He added that “every fish counts,” especially when it comes to chinook. The species is a key cultural figure for the syilx Okanagan Nation, being ntytyix (Chief Salmon) of the Four Food Chiefs.

“People don’t realize how rare they are, and a lot of people don’t even know that there’s chinook in the system,” he explained.

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While much attention has been paid to sockeye salmon restoration efforts, Marsel said chinook hold a particularly important place in the culture.

“For the syilx Nation and all the people here, it means so much more,” he explained. “Not that sockeye aren’t important, but ntytyix holds a lot more meaning.”

The partnership to help chinook recover by sharing eggs hasn’t just transcended the border, however. It might also be helping transcend some political divisions between First Nations.

In recent years, the newly established Sinixt Confederacy — under the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation — has at times been at odds with Okanagan Nation Alliance over legal and territorial claims related to the historically displaced Sinixt people, and which tribal council represents their descendants. The Okanagan Nation Alliance has asserted that the Sinixt people have always existed as part of the larger syilx Nation rather than as its own entity.

During the hatchery partnership’s decade, the tensions have resulted in chinook egg transfers being withheld, Marsel said — but he firmly believes the two tribal governments realize working together for salmon outweighs their inter-governmental disagreements. 

“We have this same common goal,” he said. “Working together is what’s going to make it better.”

“To have the collaboration is extremely important, not only for the people but definitely the environment, the salmon [and] everything that thrives off the salmon.”

But long before the two modern-day tribal organizations were formed, Marsel said Indigenous communities in the region always supported and traded with one another.

“We have family down in Colville Confederated Tribes,” he said. “There was trading constantly across that imaginary line that’s now put up.”

“It’s not like this is a new thing where we’re working with Colville Confederated Tribes — but it’s exciting that now we’re working together for a common goal, and that’s conservation.”

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On the border between the United States and Mexico, a black bear paces back and forth when confronted with the looming steel beams that form the border wall between the two countries. A pack of javelina wriggles through a tiny opening barely bigger than a piece of printer paper. 

But on the border between Canada and the U.S., the picture is very different.

In many places, moose, bear, wolves and other wildlife can simply walk between the two nations. There are barriers — roads, development and a lack of protected habitat on either side — but for more than a century, relatively relaxed border policy and a shared sense of purpose saw conservationists in both countries working together to overcome them.

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has ratcheted up the challenges to cross-border conservation. Since his election, he has threatened Canadian sovereignty, sowed economic jeopardy on both sides of the border and cancelled, or proposed cancelling, many U.S. research grants for conservation work.

Bears cross borders without a second thought, like this pair in Waterton Lakes National Park, along the U.S. border in southwestern Alberta. Geopolitical turmoil may not impact wildlife at the border directly, but it has big implications for cross-border conservation efforts. Photo: Ryan Peruniak

Many of Trump’s actions have explicit implications for cross-border conservation — in North America and globally. Early on in this term, Trump, along with Elon Musk, then at the helm of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, all but shut down USAID and its international conservation efforts. Canadian conservation organizations have reported losing co-funding as a result of Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. As his administration has stretched staffing thin and proposed deep budget cuts at the U.S. National Park Service, it ended funding many found crucial to habitat conservation work across the border.

Trump has also withdrawn from the Green Climate Fund and the Paris Agreement — both of which support co-operative global action on climate change — and has signalled he wants to cut the Multinational Species Conservation Fund. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, which monitors aquatic health on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border and is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has also been gutted.

Other impacts on Canadian conservation are more subtle. As stories of tightening border security spread online, many professionals fear crossing the border for business purposes, no matter how legitimate and lawful they may be. Not to mention the visceral chill in many Canadians’ perception of their closest neighbour.

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Despite the challenges, Canadian organizations doing cross-border work are carrying on. “In some ways, nothing has changed for wildlife. Wildlife are still free to cross the boundaries,” said Jodi Hilty, the president and chief scientist of the landscape connectivity initiative Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), which aims to create an uninterrupted wildlife corridor through that region.  

But Trump has also cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts to establish connected habitat across the two countries’ national boundaries, and conservation organizations are navigating uncharted waters.

An international science conference in the U.S. highlights declining Canadian participation

Cross-border collaborations rely on relationships. Putting private land into a conservation easement — a legal designation that can prevent development in perpetuity — or securing wildlife movement data comes down to individual relationships between scientists, conservationists and land owners. Yet, many people working in conservation have expressed anxieties that Trump’s attacks on Canadian sovereignty and increased concern about the perceived risks of crossing the border are stymying those critical connections. 

“We saw the biggest impact at our biannual science symposium,” Jessica Lax, the executive director of the Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative, said in an interview. The group aims to protect corridors for wildlife movement between the two eastern U.S. and Canadian parks, similar to Yellowstone to Yukon’s efforts to the west. The group hosts a conference every other year, alternating between nations. 

In 2025, the collaborative held its conference in upstate New York. Many Canadians couldn’t or wouldn’t attend — out of the 80 people in attendance, Lax said, only 10 to 15 were Canadian, less than half the expected representation. The event is just as much about sharing research and management strategies across the border as it is about building face-to-face connections with others in this line of work, Lax said.

She worries that because a smaller group of Canadians attended this year, some of those foundational connections were not made. “It’s a subtle thing that now runs through a lot of the work that will make things a little bit harder, because those relationships weren’t strengthened.”

Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta and Glacier National Park in Montana meet at the Canada-U.S. border, and together they form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Shaking hands across the border is a common practice that symbolizes the two countries’ shared goal of peace. Photo: Parks Canada / Facebook

Hilty cites Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta and Glacier National Park in Montana, which together form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, as an example of the importance of maintaining relationships. There, every year, Canadian and American members of the global organization Rotary International shake hands and recite the “peace pledge.” 

“May the long-standing peace between our nations stimulate other peoples to follow this example.”

Hilty calls this type of effort “positive peace.”

“Positive peace is an active intent to work together,” she explained, one that extends across borders and barriers.

She sees Yellowstone to Yukon’s work in this light. The organization is technically two non-profits, one Canadian and one American, working in concert. That process demands constant interaction and proactive co-operation between two countries — not just internally, among board members and staff, but also with the community groups and landowners in the Yellowstone to Yukon region, Hilty says. 

“I think movements like [Yellowstone to Yukon], and these transboundary efforts are not just hugely important just for nature, but they are also really important for society,” Hilty said. “How do we lean in and maintain and build relationships during this time when governments are having all this tension? How do we keep it at the community level?”

Local governments, international movement

For Yellowstone to Yukon, keeping things at the community level — through connections with tribal governments and private landowners — has made progress despite the political climate. Nowhere has that been more apparent than their work with the Blackfoot Confederacy to bring free-ranging bison back to the West, through a project called the Iinnii Initiative. 

“There’s a lot around this idea of sharing bison and erasing this artificial line and restoring a free-ranging, or a semi-free-ranging, herd,” Hilty said.

The cross-border conservation group Yellowstone to Yukon is supporting the Blackfoot Confederacy’s efforts to reintroduce free-ranging bison to the landscape. Photo: Gavin John / The Narwhal

Guardians in the Blackfeet Buffalo Program now tend to the small population of iinnii. The larger aim is to link tribal and public lands in a transborder corridor, where the bison can range freely — not as cattle, as most of the bison that do live on the landscape are categorized today — and restore balance to the grassland ecosystem that relies on their presence.

For now, Yellowstone to Yukon is supporting the ambitions of the Blackfoot Confederacy by focusing on granular details, like working on a state level to broaden the legal designation of bison beyond the narrow classification of livestock.

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In the east, the Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative has also focused on the “nitty gritty,” in Lax’s words. Recently, the group’s focus has turned to the planned expansion of Ontario’s Highway 401, Canada’s busiest highway. They are pushing for the expansion to include the construction of wildlife crossings along the highway.

The Frontenac Arch and Thousand Island region, where the highway expansion falls, has become more and more important as a conservation pathway, Lax explained. As ice in the St. Lawrence River melts, wildlife have been funnelled into a pinch point for passage as they move from north to south. The highway, Lax explained, is a huge source of wildlife mortality in this increasingly delicate region. Though she sees the environmental harm an expansion can have, smart crossings, she suspects, could actually reduce the impact the highway currently has on wildlife trying to migrate across the corridor. Though the highway sits firmly on the Canadian side of the Algonquin to Adirondacks corridor, Lax said she has received an outpouring of interest and help from American partners. “This region influences the ecosystems on the U.S. side pretty significantly,” she said.

Wildlife overpasses such as this one near Calgary help make animals’ annual migrations — which often cross the Canada-U.S. border — safer. In Ontario, the cross-border conservation group Algonquin to Adirondacks is advocating for similar wildlife corridors along Highway 401 near Kingston. Photo: Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press

Wildlife cover a lot of ground, ‘much bigger geopolitical scale’

Though working on a smaller scale has proven crucial for achieving habitat protection, for widely migrating wildlife to truly benefit, conservationists say, it’s essential to link those efforts together on a broad, transnational scale. Few are more familiar with this than bird biologists. 

“Focusing on one country, one state, one political jurisdiction is clearly not dealing with the biodiversity crisis. We have to be thinking at a much bigger geographic scale, which means you’re looking at a much bigger geopolitical scale,” Jeff Wells, the National Audubon Society’s vice-president of boreal conservation, told The Narwhal.

Take the red knot: a small, tawny shorebird that breeds in the Arctic but spends its summers in South America. Delaware Bay, an estuary between Delaware and New Jersey, is a crucial halfway point on the birds’ journey, where they can stop to fuel up on horseshoe crab eggs. As interest in harvesting the horseshoe crabs for pharmaceutical use and bait has grown, so too has a fervent movement to protect the crabs, beach habitat and birds in Delaware Bay.

But none of that matters, Wells said, if the breeding grounds in Hudson Bay and the wintering grounds in South America are not equally protected. Audubon is now working with nine Ontario First Nations to build out a marine protected area in Hudson Bay.

Navigating the need for data and funding, without certainty of either

Data is key to identifying areas for protection, but cuts to U.S. research funding may have jeopardized its collection, and many government databases have simply been wiped.

Hilty particularly fears the loss of movement data collected by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which includes the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service among its members.. For now, it remains accessible on the team’s website.

When it comes to grizzly bears, data that illustrates movement patterns is crucial in helping get the population of Yellowstone grizzlies connected with the genetic diversity of a larger Canadian population, Hilty explained. It allows Yellowstone to Yukon to identify priority habitat and work with ranchers and communities to ensure they are protected from development.

A young grizzly fishes for salmon. Conservation advocates fear the Trump administration may cut funding for research crucial to data on grizzlies’ movement patterns. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal

Losing it, she said, would mean losing access to “one of the biggest, longest-term large carnivore data sets in the world,” she said. 

She underscored that her team and other conservationists outside the organization are still unpacking the long-term impacts of not being able to use the full scope of information and data needed for these projects.

To the east, Algonquin to Adirondacks is already feeling the impact of cuts: this spring, Lax says, a National Park Service grant that would have gone towards completing a mapping project was frozen unexpectedly. The organization’s bi-national status allowed it to secure funding from Parks Canada to cover the gaps.

The work of re-orienting to the current political climate and cross-border tensions will take time, conservationists say, but so does the work of true connectivity. The timelines for a landscape and a species extend much further than the flashpoint-anxiety of any one presidential administration. 

“Any opportunities people have for collaboration, they should see it as even more important and meaningful than ever,” Wells said. “The work will go on. It’s essential to human life. So it doesn’t even make sense not to continue.”

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

In the midst of an international inquiry into transboundary water pollution from southeast B.C. coal mines, Elk Valley Resources has submitted a revised proposal for new mining in the region.

Teck Resources, the previous owner of the coal mines, initially proposed the Fording River Extension Project five years ago. In 2023, the provincial government directed the company to submit a revised proposal following a dispute resolution process initiated by the Ktunaxa Nation Council, which opposed the project over the risk of “extraordinarily adverse effects.”

In the intervening years Teck shifted its focus to copper, selling its coal business in a US$9-billion deal to Swiss mining giant Glencore and two other companies. Glencore now holds a majority stake in Elk Valley Resources, which operates the four active coal mines in the area.

The revised project description for the Fording River expansion, which Elk Valley Resources submitted to B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office last month, proposes a two-phase approach to developing a smaller mine, with a shorter lifespan, with plans to restore mined areas incrementally throughout operations rather than waiting until mine operations have ended. It also limits the risks from waste rock dumps to a creek that has so far been largely unaffected by coal mine pollution and incorporates additional water quality measures.

Coal from the Elk Valley mines is loaded onto trains for transport to the coast, then shipped overseas where it’s burned to make steel. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher with the Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, said the changes to the Fording River extension proposal are largely positive.

“But at the end of the day, the mine hasn’t changed sufficiently for us to not oppose it at all,” he said. “They’re still knocking down an entire mountain.”

Ktunaxa Nation Council and Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it, one of four Ktunaxa First Nations in B.C., were involved in revisions to the mine proposal, Chris Stannell, Elk Valley Resources communication manager, said. 

While Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle said the best case scenario would be for the mine expansion to be taken off the table, she supports moving the proposal into the next phase of the environmental assessment process.

“What are the other options? To end mining? It’s not going to happen. To make this someone else’s problem in a different area, different mountain?” she said in an interview. 

Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it will continue to be actively involved throughout the environmental assessment process, she said. “These are our lands and we’re here to protect them, we’re here to guide them.”

Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡiʾit Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle says she remains concerned new mining would threaten high-elevation grasslands and water quality. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Gravelle said the nation understands there’s a need for resources, but development doesn’t have to happen the way it has in the past. “Roads are going to be built, schools are going to be built, mining’s going to happen — but does it have to be the way that it has been done historically? Absolutely not,” she said. “There’s a lot that can still be done in the environmental assessment process — there are still a lot of pieces that can be scaled back.”

New mining would destroy high-elevation grasslands, risk added water pollution woes

If approved as currently proposed, the Fording River extension would see new mountaintop-removal coal mining on Castle Mountain, just south of Elk Valley Resources’ existing Fording River Operations. The company says the expansion is necessary to maintain mine operations and sustain more than 1,500 jobs beyond the early 2030s to the early 2060s. 

Under the revised proposal, the extension project would have a total footprint of 4,326 hectares, more than 10 times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park. About 2,295 hectares are within already permitted areas and include existing waste rock storage areas, a coal processing plant and a tailings storage facility. The new mining area at Castle Mountain, which is not yet permitted, is just over 2,000 hectares. 

In another shift from the original proposal, Elk Valley Resources is now pitching a staged approach to the project. Phase one would involve construction from 2028 to 2031 with mine operations until 2053. Construction for phase two would begin in 2044, when phase one operations are set to decline, with phase two mining planned for 2046 to 2065.

A spokesperson for the Environmental Assessment Office said the next opportunity for public comment will be after the agency decides whether the project is ready to proceed through the environmental assessment process. Wiebe has urged the government to hold a second public comment period before that decision is made, noting the project has changed since consultations in 2023. 

If the project does proceed, the next phase is process planning, during which the assessment office will engage with First Nations, stakeholders, experts and the public to determine how the assessment will be conducted and how provincial and First Nation processes and decision-making will align.

The Fording River mine expansion would see new mountaintop-removal coal mining on Castle Mountain. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

The Elk Valley has been heavily impacted by historic coal mining dating back 130 years, as well as extensive logging, a highway and rail corridor and the development of several communities. The Fording River extension would add to existing impacts. It would mean losing more high-elevation grasslands in the area, which offer important wintering grounds for bighorn sheep and forage for elk and deer, for instance. “This is irreplaceable habitat,” Wiebe said.

The massive piles of waste rock left over from the mining process, meanwhile, have been a source of water pollution for as long as coal has been mined from the Rocky Mountains of the Elk Valley. When the waste rock is exposed to rain and snow, naturally occurring minerals like calcite and selenium seep into the water, eventually flowing into nearby creeks and rivers. 

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

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

Teck has invested more than $1.4 billion in water treatment to reduce water pollution from its mines and Glencore committed to continue ramping up treatment capacity when it took the mines over. Treatment facilities currently have the capacity to treat 77.5 million litres of water per day. According to the company, water treatment facilities are removing between 95 and 99 per cent of selenium from treated water. However, the facilities are not able to treat all contaminated water that flows downstream.

“[Elk Valley Resources] has made significant progress implementing the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan,” Stannell said in an emailed statement. “Selenium concentrations have stabilized and are now reducing downstream of treatment.” 

Three more water treatment projects now under construction are expected to increase water treatment capacity by another 50 million litres per day by 2027, according to the company’s website.  

Selenium levels downstream of the Elk Valley coal mines remain well above B.C.’s guideline of two parts per billion, which is meant to protect aquatic life. But the company is not required to get selenium levels this low in either the Fording or Elk rivers. The B.C. government set selenium targets for the Fording River at 57 parts per billion closer to the mines and 40 parts per billion farther downstream. In the Elk River, the province set a target of 19 parts per billion.

“As a British Columbian, it’s kind of embarrassing, to be honest, that we’re entertaining this discussion,” Wiebe said. “We have an international water pollution issue going on and we’re talking about actively making it worse.”

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

Gravelle said the risks of added water pollution and the loss of high-elevation grasslands are major concerns for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it. But she also worries about what happens if the company were to walk away. “Who’s going to pay for that mess that is up there?” she asked. “We see in other areas around the country where there are abandoned mines and things like that — nobody does.”

Late last month, the province released an updated Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, which aims for progressive improvements to water quality downstream of the mines. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Parks said “the updated plan strengthens B.C.’s regulatory role and provides a clear framework for how decisions are made that affect water quality, ensuring the Ktunaxa First Nations are included.” 

It did not, however, strengthen selenium targets. “But it better prepares us to make these decisions going forward by providing guidance on the process for target review and amendment,” the spokesperson said.

Long-awaited international inquiry into Elk Valley coal mine pollution underway

Water pollution from the mines flows from the Elk River into Lake Koocanusa, a vast reservoir spanning the Canada-U.S. border, before coursing through Montana and Idaho in the Kootenai River. In both states there are long-standing concerns about the impact of the pollution on vulnerable fish species. 

After more than a decade of pressure from the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation, which includes the four First Nations in B.C., the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the federal governments in the U.S. and Canada agreed to involve the International Joint Commission. The commission was established under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to address intractable disputes over water between the two countries.

The commission convened a body of all affected governments within the region to develop an action plan to reduce the impacts of mine pollution on the watershed, as well as a two-year study board of experts and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers to better understand the pollution and its impact on people and other species. The study board’s interim report is due in September.

Meanwhile in Montana, the state is facing its own struggles over its selenium standard for Lake Koocanusa. 

Between 2015 and 2020, a joint B.C.-Montana working group studied and monitored selenium contamination in the reservoir, with the intention that the two jurisdictions would adopt a single standard for the lake. In 2020, Montana moved forward on its own implementing a more stringent standard of 0.8 parts per billion. Five years later, B.C. is still considering a new standard for Koocanusa — for now it remains at two parts per billion.

But, Lincoln County, the Montana county that surrounds Koocanusa, is once again challenging the state’s standard, outlining concerns that overly restrictive limits could affect local industry, though Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality said back in 2020 that the standard would have no adverse economic impacts in the state.

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

“It befuddles me, really. I mean there are no sources of selenium in that basin within Montana — it’s coming from Canada and in terms of the benefits that we derive from the Elk Valley operations, it’s slim to nil,” Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, an environmental advocacy group, said in an interview.

Johnson warned key Montana industries could be harmed by higher selenium, calling the challenge “a slap in the face to people that rely upon clean water to do their work.”

“We’re talking about outfitters and fishermen, which is really important business in Montana,” he said.

Johnson said he remains hopeful that the International Joint Commission process will be a good step towards addressing the pollution from the Elk Valley coal mines. 

But he said considering new mining at this stage is “just throwing gasoline on the fire.”

“It’s tough to say this right now because of the current state of political affairs in the United States, but it’s about being a good neighbour in terms of making sure that our water quality is protected.”

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.

Scattered across Great Lakes shores in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ontario, Great Lakes piping plovers are nesting and reproducing this year. Since being put on the U.S. Endangered Species Act list in 1984, the plovers are recovering, but only with the protection and assistance of a significant coalition of people and organizations, ranging from universities, volunteer groups, Audubon Great Lakes, zoos and state, federal and provincial governmental agencies.

“This year, we’re doing great. We actually just hit another record pair count. So, we have 85 nesting pairs this year. And that’s four more pairs than we had the last two years,” said Stephanie Schubel at the University of Michigan Biological Station near Pellston. She’s been visiting sites across the region, checking on nesting sites as part of the Great Lakes Piping Plovers conservation effort.

Predators take a toll on piping plovers

People involved in the effort to bring back the Great Lakes piping plover population are pleased with this year’s success, but they’re also concerned about the challenges to the nesting birds.

Chief among those challenges is a small falcon called a merlin. It is a threatened species in Michigan. When more sightings of the bird began a few years ago, people were pleased. Then they found that merlins prey on piping plovers.

A piping plover chick explores a Great Lakes beach. Photo: Lester Graham / Michigan Public

“We’ve lost at least eight to ten adults this year to merlins,” Schubel said.

Other predators that kill adult piping plovers, or chicks, or raid the nests for eggs include foxes, owls, racoons, skunks, mink and weasels, among others.

Saving the piping plover chicks

When predators strike, monitors at each nesting site try to recover the eggs to send to the Piping Plover Captive Rearing Center at the University of of Michigan Biological Station.

Francesca Cuthbert, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology said originally the Captive Rearing Center was “just a homegrown operation” until the early 1990s. The Detroit Zoological Society got involved in the effort, building a hatchery at the University of of Michigan Biological Station and offering expertise. The Detroit Zoo also involved other zoos in the effort through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Francie Cuthbert looks in on piping plover chicks at the Captive Rearing Center at the University of Michigan Biological Station. Photos: Steve Jessmore; Lester Graham / Michigan Public

Cuthbert, whom everyone calls Francie, has been a leading figure in the Great Lakes piping plover effort. While I interviewed her, a photographer from Michigan, Steve Jessmore, was working on a profile that would be published in the Audubon magazine. (Jessmore has won multiple national awards from Audubon for his bird photography.)

The three of us visited the hatchery. Eggs were being incubated. Newly hatched chicks were already escaping containment in an incubator.

“One of these guys just bailed out,” Cuthbert said to a staff member. “And now he’s just skitting around and probably not very happy with life.”

Apparently, that’s not unusual, because as soon as that chick was put back with the others, another hopped out, and Cuthbert could only laugh. Time to put the newly hatched chicks saved from a beach on North Manitou Island, Mich. into a larger enclosure.

An audio recording of lakeshore waves and piping plover peeps help to create a natural environment. The birds will quickly be moved outdoors to a sandy beach on a lake at the biological station. From there, they’ll be taken back to the original beach where their nest was.

Cuthbert said the chicks go from egg to beach in 30 days.

‘Tremendous’ habitat potential at Lake Superior

One of the nesting sites is at Whitefish Point, Mich. on a section managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Seney National Wildlife Refuge. The site is just 15 miles from where the cargo ship the Edmund Fitzgerald sank with its crew, as made famous by a song by Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot.

Whitefish Point once stretched its sand and pebble beach much farther out into Lake Superior. A winter storm destroyed two acres of the kind of habitat where piping plovers nest.

From plovers to friends: how a feathery love triangle spurred Canada and the U.S. to save tiny endangered birds

Whitefish Point is a popular tourist site because of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and its iconic lighthouse. That makes it a good opportunity to tell more people about the plight of the piping plover.

There was concern, though, that losing habitat might stop the birds from nesting there. Cuthbert noted even with that loss there’s a “tremendous amount of potential habitat there.”

She’s not alone in that thinking.

“The lakeshore has always been dynamic, right?” said Max Henschell, director of research of Michigan Audubon, which operates a bird observatory in co-operation with the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.

“That point has come and gone throughout the history of the point. So, these birds are used to that dynamic too,” Henschell said.

Too many males, not enough females

This year, there is one nesting pair, four chicks exploring their new world and two extra males. That’s causing a little conflict.

Stephanie Owens has been monitoring the nesting site at Whitefish Point. We watched as the female chased away one of the males.

Like all the piping plover nesting sites, there’s a cordoned off area and then a cage over the nest. The openings in the cage are big enough for the birds to come in and out, but can help keep predators and people away from the nest.

Chicks from orphaned eggs are kept safe from predators at the Piping Plover Captive Rearing Center at the University of Michigan Biological Station. Photo: Lester Graham / Michigan Public

The piping plover’s nest is called a scrape. Basically, the birds use their bodies to make a small depression in the sand and then line them with pebbles.

“So, it’s very, very darling. It’s pebbles and sometimes it’s even shells, like even zebra mussel shells,” explained Stephanie Schubel.

She said the last couple of years there have been extra males on all of the beaches where piping plovers have been nesting.

“We don’t know really where we’re losing the females,” she said.

It could be when they’re young, or at their wintering grounds along the U.S. southern Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Caribbean and Mexico. Or the females might not survive migration.

“We just know that we have less females, which means not as many pairs as we could have if it was a balanced number,” Schubel said.

People and dogs don’t mix with piping plovers

The decline of the Great Lakes piping plovers is often blamed on market hunting in the 1800s. The birds were killed for their meat and for feathers for women’s hats.

Francie Cuthbert said in the 1950s there was another significant drop in the population because of museums.

“There was a lot of collecting (for specimens) that went on not only of adults, but young, eggs and so on,” Cuthbert said.

She’s looked at the records of museums across the country and there are Great Lakes piping plovers in many of them.

“So, that was a pressure that came down on them.”

Another pressure is people. When beaches were selected for national, state and local parks, they were often the places where piping plovers nested.

“It was before a time when people didn’t even know what the word biodiversity meant. And these were beaches that people thought, ‘well, there’s nothing here; it’s just sand,’ ” Cuthbert said.

“People and plovers don’t mix,” Cuthbert added.

At Whitefish Point, a lot of people were strolling the beaches, many of them unaware of the tiny chicks venturing to the water’s edge in search of food. They eat invertebrates in the wet sand.

Nearby, a woman was throwing a toy into the lake for her dog to fetch.

“Everyone thinks ‘my dog is not going to do anything,’ but they’re still a dog,” Stephanie Schubel said, adding, “They like to run and chase stuff and this can really stress the birds.”

She said keeping your dog on a leash “is super helpful.”

While the record number of nesting pairs is being celebrated, the Great Lakes piping plover population needs to nearly double to be taken off the Endangered Species Act list. Population growth has been uneven.

While some of the challenges have been outlined above, other challenges include weather, climate, development along beaches and potential mishaps such as a Great Lakes oil spill.

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.

Far off Canada’s Pacific coast, and in oceans around the world, mining companies are exploring the bottom of the sea. There, rocky formations contain in-demand minerals like copper, nickel and cobalt. Companies see deepwater dollar signs in a potential new industry: deep-sea mining. 

A Canadian deep-sea mining venture called The Metals Company recently asked the U.S. government to make its dream of an industry a reality. In the wake of the Donald Trump administration declaring deep-sea mining a priority, The Metals Company has applied for U.S. permits to explore and mine Pacific seabed minerals. If it’s successful, it could become the first company to ever commercially mine the deep. It could also undermine global co-operation on managing oceans and their resources.

Here’s what you need to know about deep-sea mining, the environmental risks, The Metals Company and a potential showdown over international ocean agreements.

What is deep-sea mining?

Deep-sea miners plan to use remotely operated robots to remove mineral-rich seabed formations. Though it’s never been done on a commercial scale, companies and governments have explored the prospect for decades, from searching for mineral deposits to running large mining tests. 

These minerals can be used to make steel, batteries, wiring and much more. With such wide-ranging applications, they’re in demand for everything from industrial manufacturing to military technology, as well as emission-free technology such as electric vehicles. The minerals found on the seabed can make powerful long-range batteries, ideal for large trucks and luxury cars. 

A sonar mapping image of a high seamount in the Central Pacific Basin, dubbed Kahalewai by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Researchers discovered it was 4,200 metres tall, almost 1,000 metres taller than previously thought. Photo: Deep CCZ expedition / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Exploration

Three types of environments could be mined. Polymetallic nodule fields are the most popular option: these deepwater plains are covered with “nodules,” or mineral-rich rocks, which lay on top of the seabed, so they’re easy to remove. Seamounts are another possibility: underwater mountains can develop mineral-rich crusts on their surfaces. Some miners are also interested in inactive hydrothermal vents: spires of minerals that formed around volcanic sea-floor fissures before cooling off. 

Deep-sea nodules and seamount crusts take millions of years to form, as the minerals dissolved in seawater slowly settle into these deposits. Minerals deposits from hydrothermal vents form a bit more quickly (and can be destroyed quickly, by the volcanic activity that creates them). Still, these resources aren’t renewable on human timescales.

Where does Canada stand on deep-sea mining? 

Canada effectively has a moratorium, or temporary ban, on domestic deep-sea mining. A 2023 statement from the ministers of natural resources and fisheries and oceans said, “Canada does not presently have a domestic legal framework that would permit seabed mining and, in the absence of a rigorous regulatory structure, will not authorize seabed mining in areas under its jurisdiction.” 

While that ban could be lifted in the future, Canada also has permanent protections for all of its known hydrothermal vents and over 90 per cent of its known seamounts, so these ecosystems can never be mined. In addition, it supports a moratorium on deep-sea mining in international waters. 

How does deep-sea mining affect the environment?

There are no plants in the deepest parts of the ocean, which sunlight doesn’t reach. However, there are many animals. Seamounts and hydrothermal vents are biodiversity hotspots. Stationary species, such as sponges and tubeworms, attach to them, forming communities that attract swimming species like fish. In the polymetallic nodule fields, the animals tend to be sparser and smaller, but biodiversity is still high.

The nodules offer surfaces for animals like sponges to live on, and scientists have even found octopuses laying eggs on these sponges. Tiny animals, like frilled-looking bristle worms, live in the sediments and inside nodule crevasses. Still, scientists predict the majority of deep sea life still needs to be described — or formally classified — by science: they know there are new species there, but they don’t know exactly how many there are.  

One potential threat is that deep-sea mining removes rocky sea-floor formations that provide habitat for animals like sponges and corals, which need hard surfaces to grow on. 

A close-up image of the mouth of a brittle star, taken during a 2018 research expedition into the Clarion-Clipperton Zone by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photo: Deep CCZ expedition / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Exploration

Mining machines could also bring noise and light to the dark, quiet sea-floor, while ships at the surface would add to the cacophony of industrial ocean activity. Sediment that gets kicked up by mining is another risk as it could interfere with animals’ ability to breathe, communicate with bioluminescence, or get food by filtering tiny edible things from water. After sea-floor minerals are pumped to the surface, any excess sediment that comes with them would be put back into the ocean, creating a second sediment plume. 

In a recent study, U.K.-based scientists returned to a test mining site in the Pacific Ocean 44 years later to see how life there had responded. Certain species had started recolonizing the mining area, but there was lower biodiversity overall. This suggests that some life can persist after deep-sea mining, but ecosystems may not fully return to normal — at least, not on timescales we can easily measure. 

Many questions remain unanswered about how deep-sea mining would impact ecosystems. The deep sea is immense and it’s not easy to sample life there. Scientists know relatively little about sea-floor biodiversity or how the ecosystems are connected. Risks depend on the environment being mined, the type of equipment used and the size of the mining area. 

The Metals Company’s production vessel, the Hidden Gem, is owned and operated by Dutch offshore contractor Allseas. Photo: Supplied by The Metals Company

Despite Canada’s moratorium, some scientists are concerned that impacts from distant mining operations could reach Canadian waters. For example, planned nodule mining tests by a Chinese company near northeast Pacific seamounts could have far-reaching consequences, according to Cherisse Du Preez, a marine biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 

“Even though they seem like they’re far away from Canada, they lie in one of the convention areas that we manage internationally with other countries,” she says, speaking of the North Pacific Fishery Commission convention area, which sits over the seamounts at the test mining site. The site is located in the vast open Pacific, between Hawaii and China. But because Canada is among the countries that fish there, sediment from mining could harm seafood that Canadians eat. 

Seabed sediment can naturally contain metals like cadmium that become toxic at certain levels. Fish could die once exposed to these metals, or survive with dangerous levels of toxins inside them. Contaminated species may be fished from the convention area, while others could travel back to Canadian waters before being caught: some fish, like salmon, can travel incredibly far on migration routes. “We’re just a couple steps away from the deep sea with everything we do on this planet,” Du Preez says.

She notes that mining near seamounts, even at test scale, magnifies the risks of sediment plumes. These underwater mountains act like ramps, stirring up water that flows up the sides. That means plumes created by mining here can spin sediment into immense eddies that carry across long distances. 

Shipping and processing deep-sea minerals would also have environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions. Some U.S. deep-sea mining advocates hope to process and refine the minerals in “friendly countries,” including Canada. A 2020 assessment of predicted deep-sea mining emissions by a German university named Canada as a potential processing site for Pacific seabed minerals. 

A swarm of cutthroat eels on the top of a seamount 3,200 metres deep, seen during a 2018 research expedition into the Clarion-Clipperton Zone by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Video: Deep CCZ expedition / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Exploration.

What is The Metals Company?

Headquartered in Vancouver, The Metals Company operates through subsidiaries across the world, including in Singapore, Indonesia, the British Virgin Islands and the United States. The publicly traded company is financed through sales of stocks and stock options, as well as loans. Just last month, it raised US$37 million from investors. More recently, it announced a US$85 million investment from a Korean metal smelting company.

The Metals Company focuses on nodule mining. The company recently poured US$250 million into researching environmental impacts and even conducted a large test mining operation that took more than 3,000 tonnes of nodules from the Pacific sea-floor. However, unless it can get a commercial mining permit, it can’t collect and sell minerals for profit. And even then, profits would be far from guaranteed: deep-sea mining is an untested industry with incredibly high expenses.

In April, the company applied for three U.S. deep sea mining permits. Two are for exploration and one is for commercial recovery — that is, actual mining. Through these permits, The Metals Company aims to explore minerals across nearly 200,000 square kilometres, and mine an area just over 25,000 square kilometres. Its proposed commercial mining site is in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a large patch of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico, with lots of nodules and some seamounts. It isn’t in U.S. waters, but rather a shared international zone. 

The Metals Company’s collector vehicle is lowered from a production vessel on its way to the sea-floor, four kilometres down. The remotely operated collector is like a “big Dyson vacuum cleaner that crawls along the seabed very slowly,” environmental manager Michael Clarke said. Photo: Supplied by The Metals Company

What is The Metals Company’s mining plan?

The Metals Company’s mining system includes a remotely operated collector vehicle on the seabed, a ship at the surface and a very, very long pipe between the two. 

The collector is like a “big Dyson vacuum cleaner that crawls along the seabed very slowly,” The Metals Company’s environmental manager, Michael Clarke, told The Narwhal. This vehicle uses water jets to lift the nodules off the sea-floor. It sucks them in, spins them to remove debris and sends them up the riser pipe on a four-kilometre journey to the surface vessel. That’s about the height of seven CN Towers stacked on top of each other.

The company states its mining strategy can help reduce environmental risks. Its collector vehicle is designed to be buoyant, so it doesn’t sink deep into the sea-floor, which the company says reduces the level of sediment that gets disturbed. After the minerals are collected, the company intends to put the excess sediment back in the ocean at depths of 2,000 metres, where research indicates life is more sparse than at higher levels. “We’ve put a lot of time and effort into minimizing the amount of sediment that actually goes up the pipe to the surface,” Clarke says. 

Of the species The Metals Company has collected in one of its exploration zones, 80 per cent aren’t yet described by science.

While the sea-floor collector vehicle is fairly quiet, noise from the surface ship could impact the behaviour of marine mammals, like whales, in a radius of nearly four kilometres. “This is really no different from any other vessel that’s out there that’s using dynamic positioning,” Clarke says, referring to the use of thrusters to keep ships in place, which is common in the oil and gas industry.

On the sea-floor, it’s not fully clear which species stand to be impacted. Of the species The Metals Company has collected in one of its exploration zones, 80 per cent aren’t yet described by science. The company states its operations would transform a seabed nodule habitat into a “nodule free habitat,” which would likely change what’s able to live there, since some species appear to depend on the nodules for survival. “We don’t need to know the name of every species that’s out there. We don’t need to know the distribution of every species,” Clarke says. “What we do need to know is the magnitude of the impacts that we’re creating.”

In a 2022 mining test, The Metals Company and its technology partner Allseas removed more than 3,000 tonnes of nodules from the seabed. Photo: Supplied by The Metals Company

How is the Trump administration pushing deep-sea mining forward?

In 2021, The Metals Company emerged in its present iteration, out of an earlier brand called DeepGreen Metals. Every year since 2021, it has invested in lobbying U.S. government agencies to support deep-sea mining. That investment seems to have finally paid off, as the Trump administration issued a pro-deep-sea mining executive order in April, just before The Metals Company applied for permits. 

U.S. executive orders don’t create laws, but lay out policy intentions — and this one contains a lot of intentions. One highlight is that it calls for fast-tracking the deep-sea mining permitting process. It also orders a report on adding seabed minerals to the U.S. National Defense Stockpile — a strategic inventory of raw materials for wartime use — and calls for revised regulations to support U.S. mineral processing. 

The U.S. government has invited deep-sea miners and supporters to speak to policymakers, including at a recent Committee on Natural Resources hearing, where the possibility of Canadian mineral processing was mentioned. Several deep-sea mining supporters are members of the Trump administration.

A worm species that was unknown to science before a 2018 research expedition into the Clarion-Clipperton Zone by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photo: Deep CCZ expedition / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Exploration

What could happen next?

The Metals Company’s plan to get a go-ahead from the U.S. has been criticized by a number of countries and organizations, including the International Seabed Authority. The United Nations-affiliated authority oversees deep-sea mining in international waters. Most countries are International Seabed Authority members, including Canada, but the U.S. is not. The authority has issued many exploration permits, including to The Metals Company subsidiaries. However, it’s never issued a commercial mining permit. Its mining regulations are still under debate. 

Since 1984, the U.S. has also issued and renewed exploration permits for minerals on the international seabed, ignoring international agreements in favour of its own legal framework. But, like the International Seabed Authority, it has never issued a commercial mining permit.

The Metals Company hopes to get U.S. permits and start mining the high seas quickly. But if it bypasses the slow and unwieldy International Seabed Authority, the Canada-headquartered multinational would break the international rules Canada has agreed to. According to international law, resources of the high seas are the “common heritage” of everyone on Earth, which means choosing what to do with them should be a global decision. If they’re claimed by the U.S., that law is upended. Legal disputes could be on the horizon.

A large sea cucumber seen during a 2018 research expedition into the Clarion-Clipperton Zone by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photo: Deep CCZ expedition / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Exploration

These are uncharted waters, so to speak. Experts disagree on whether the U.S. is within its rights. Because the U.S. never joined the authority, some argue it’s not bound by the authority’s rules. The essential question is: if most of the world has agreed to a set of rules, what does that mean for a country that hasn’t?

In March, The Metals Company posted a statement from CEO and chairman Gerard Barron on its site, stating that “After 16 years of engaging with the [International Seabed Authority] in good faith, we are increasingly concerned” its eventual regulations will not allow commercial mining at all. The statement also noted that “more than two dozen nations” do not recognize the authority’s jurisdiction as binding. 

“The freedom to mine the deep seabed, like the freedom of navigation, is a high seas freedom enjoyed by all nations,” Barron’s statement said.

Still, The Metals Company has a long way to go before it can put U.S. regulations to the test. The company will need to scale up its mining equipment for commercial operations. And the U.S. agency in charge of approving or denying the company’s permits has faced significant staff cuts under Trump, which could slow things down.   

At this stage, it’s not clear where The Metals Company’s deep-sea minerals might be processed and refined, or who might buy them. In a 2024 report, the company said it intends to use “processing operations in locations like Japan and Indonesia and refineries in locations like South Korea and Canada.” With its recent pivot, The Metals Company is considering shifting its plans toward the U.S. — but because the U.S. has long outsourced mineral processing, this would require new onshore infrastructure. 

Given the reach of the industry, from sea-floor to surface and from open ocean to global ports, Du Preez believes “deep-sea mining” is a bit of a misnomer. “It’s ocean mining,” she says, “where some of the activity is going to happen on the sea-floor.”

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.

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter.

For more than 100 years, the United States and Canada have benefitted from a peaceful 5,500-mile (or 8,900-kilometre) border and co-operation on many issues of common concern. Michigan has benefitted from this relationship and without Canada, restoration efforts in the Great Lakes would not have begun in the 1970s to transform the region’s Rust Belt legacy of industrial pollution.

Michigan officials, and those of the seven other Great Lakes states, are fully aware of this history, so it is puzzling that they’ve been silent in the wake of a stream of suggestions by President Donald Trump that Canada should become the 51st state. 

These insulting pronouncements have awakened the anger of Canadians

for understandable reasons. Those who care about the Great Lakes should be similarly concerned. Partnerships like the one between the United States and Canada are uncommon in the rest of the world.

The partnership rests on a respectful coexistence. This has led to joint efforts to restore native species, block invasive species, control nutrient and toxic pollution of the Great Lakes and many other pressing concerns.

Three agreements illustrate the strength of this partnership in the past. The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty commits the United States and Canada to peacefully resolve their differences over boundary waters concerns. This has led to joint fact-finding, resolution and prevention of water conflicts across our shared border for more than a century.

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

The 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the U.S. and Canada, which has been renewed several times, is widely credited with helping guide the restoration of the Great Lakes. From one U.S. administration to another over the last 53 years, whether Republican or Democratic, this agreement has held strong and has led to continuous efforts on behalf of these precious waters. They have kept the faith. Canadians have been a partner in all these efforts under the agreement. 

The Great Lakes are shared between Canada and the U.S., as is their protection and pollution. Agreements over their management go back a half-century, and yet current political discourse puts them in question. Illustration: Simone Williamson / The Narwhal

The Great Lakes Compact of 2008 unites the eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces in banning most water diversions outside the Great Lakes watershed. It is supplemented by a parallel agreement with Ontario and Quebec that fosters improved water conservation and stewardship.

Michigan has a special reason to be a strong partner with Canada in addition to a common boundary on four of the five Great Lakes. The new Gordie Howe bridge spanning the Detroit River has been paid for exclusively by Canadians. It would not have happened without Canadians. Their repayment seems to be a barrage of attacks from the White House.

The life and death of Ontario’s Blackbird Creek

There is a great deal of unfinished business left in Great Lakes protection. The Lakes face convulsive pressures from climate change, microplastics and other threats. The best way to handle those issues is through a strong and continuing partnership with Canada and Canadians.

Rather than threaten the sovereignty of Canada, our government should be increasing its investment in protecting the Great Lakes. Our state officials, governors and others should be speaking out against the rash rhetoric that Canada should give up its independence to become an appendage of the United States. 

That would be bad for Canada and the U.S., and disastrous for the Great Lakes.

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.

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In his first weeks in office, U.S. President Donald Trump launched rapid attempts to dismantle American institutions and threaten longstanding economic partnerships, compelling Canadians to consider new ways forward. Energy has reasonably taken center stage in discussions about Canada-U.S. economic interdependence, with Trump’s threat of a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy, including oil and gas, electricity and critical minerals, still looming. 

While much discussion in Canada has centred on reviving defunct plans for cross-country pipelines, using this moment of opportunity to further expand oil and gas infrastructure would be a mistake. Climate change and its increasingly deadly impacts are a matter of national security too, and it’s untrue that Canadians must sacrifice one priority for the other. A coordinated, national push to expand the production and transmission of renewable energy, including wind and solar, would mitigate against climate change while bolstering the country’s economic independence. To ensure its long-term safety and security, Canada must prioritize decarbonization, now more than ever.

Solar power accounted for just 0.5 per cent of Canadian electricity generation in 2023, leaving significant room for growth. Photo: Province of British Columbia / Flickr

Calls to dramatically increase renewable energy capacity across the country are not new, but the anxiety created by Trump’s erratic decisions could work to nudge decision-makers further away from the idea that clean energy is a partisan issue. Canadians support clean energy — a recent poll from Environmental Defence found more than half of Canadians support the prioritization of renewable energy sources over fossil fuel production. Instead of propping up oil and gas at the expense of communities, we have an opportunity to take bold climate action. A recurring critique of the federal government’s proposed emissions cap for the oil and gas industry is the risk it could restrict cross-border trade — this grows increasingly irrelevant as the Trump administration threatens flows across the border.

The transition is already happening. A recent report from the Canadian Renewable Energy Association shows that wind, solar and energy storage sectors have grown by 46 per cent in the last five years, and are expected to keep growing. Still, solar accounted for just 0.5 per cent, and wind 6.1 per cent, of Canadian electricity generation in 2023, leaving huge potential in the country’s “massive, untapped wind and solar resources,” according to the report.

Trade disruptions pose risks to the growing industry, given the extent of integration across energy systems in Canada and the U.S. In addition to American refineries’ need for heavy Canadian crude oil, materials from Canada are essential to U.S. renewable energy development. That includes imports of steel and aluminium, which Trump slapped with a 25 per cent tariff this week. While tariffs pose a risk to the entire renewable energy industry, experts also point to opportunities for innovation and domestic growth. 

As the Trump administration attempts to hinder wind energy development and freezes hundreds of billions of dollars in congressionally mandated funding aimed at boosting renewable energy, electrification and environmental justice, Canada should double down on efforts to build a reliable and equitable domestic energy system. In addition to more renewable energy supply, we will need to build substantial transmission infrastructure within and between provinces. We’ll need to update grids, provide incentives for domestic manufacturing and revisit approaches to land use conflicts. 

Fossil fuel prices will continue to fluctuate with geopolitics, and their impacts on global climate will create planetary conditions that grow increasingly deadly. The best response is one that builds a national, coordinated effort to support an equitable renewable energy transition.

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.

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The crops have been harvested, the soil tilled. The fields are blanketed in snow. Normally, this is a farmer’s quiet season. But this year, on either side of the Canada-U.S. border, there’s a chill of unpredictability hanging in the winter air.

“My stomach starts to turn just a little bit,” Minnesota farmer Harmon Wilts said in a late January interview. “As a farmer, we can control the things we can control … but when it comes to something like tariffs — that is totally out of our control and very frustrating.”

Since November, President Donald Trump has threatened to impose broad 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods. He’s repeatedly claimed the country has no need for Canada’s exports — cars, lumber, oil and food products in particular — because America makes “the same products on the other side of the border.”

Canada and the U.S. have shared electricity for more than a century. Is that at risk?

Canadian leaders have promised retaliatory measures ranging from export taxes on major commodities like energy to dollar-for-dollar tariffs meant to squeeze vulnerable sectors of the American economy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau maintains “nothing is off the table.”

Experts predict the ripple effects of a trade war could be crushing for both economies. Canadian and American farmers, who have long relied on a steady exchange of crops, equipment, fertilizer and other agricultural goods, are bracing for impact.

Agricultural trade between Canada and the U.S. reached more than US$73 billion in 2023. That doesn’t include other commodities farmers buy from across the border, like fertilizer, fuel and equipment. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

Wilts, his wife Gina and their three daughters tend almost 650 hectares of corn, soybeans, sugar beets and alfalfa on the family farm near Kerkhoven, about two hours west of Minneapolis. Canada is an important trading partner, both as a customer and as a supplier of crucial inputs like potassium fertilizer.

In the short window before any tariff decisions are formally announced, Wilts is negotiating with suppliers and strategizing with lobby groups to build some resilience for his farm in the tumultuous years ahead.

“Canada is really important for us and I think we’re important for them on several things too,” Wilts says.

It’s a similar story in Elm Creek, Man., some six hours north, where Colin Penner and his brother grow a mix of canola, wheat, soybeans and oats on their family’s 1,450-hectare farm.

“It does feel more chaotic and uncertain than most years, but it takes a bit of nerve sometimes to be a farmer,” Penner says.

“Right now what we’re trying to do is … have a plan. What can we lock in? What can we do to make sure that we’re safe? And where can we gamble a little bit and hope for the best?”

Farmers on front lines of Canada-U.S. trade conflict

While the impacts of a Canada-U.S. trade war are likely to hit all economic sectors, Wilts believes farmers are on the front lines.

“Business owners, farmers and folks like that are right in it right now — and have been — because it totally directly affects them,” Wilts says.

Margins have been tight in farming for many years. Family farms like the Wilts’ and Penner’s are slowly losing ground to larger corporate operations. Unpredictable costs and commodity prices continue to make farming difficult, and younger generations have been reluctant to stay on the farm.

“On the farm business side of things, this is some of the tightest budgeting I’ve ever seen,” 39-year-old Penner, who is in the process of taking over the family farm from his parents, says.

“We’ve seen tremendous years where farmers are making hundreds of dollars an acre, and this year it’s looking like we might be losing $10 to $20 an acre. It does make it a little more complicated to farm.”

Manitoba farmer Colin Penner says the coming year will bring “a lot of uncertainty” as tariff threats loom over Canada’s agriculture industry. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

Tariffs would add another layer of complexity given Canada and the United States are among each other’s largest agricultural trade partners.

More than US$70 billion worth of agricultural goods crossed the border in 2023, with the U.S. buying more than half of Canada’s exports and supplying more than half its imports.

Manitoba’s agricultural industry, one of the province’s most important sectors, sent more than $4.5 billion in agriculture and food exports stateside in 2023 — almost half of all its agri-food exports. In recent years, agricultural sales to the United States have grown faster than other export sectors.

“Canada-U.S. relations on any farm is huge,” Penner says.

His farm sells oats and soybeans to brokers who then sell to U.S. customers. In recent months, he’s checked in more than once to make sure they can honour their contracts, asking: “Can you still find a home for some of these grains?”

Soybeans (right) — a crop both Wilts and Penner grow on their farms — suffered heavy losses during trade conflicts in 2018. The U.S. government eventually provided nearly US$30 billion in subsidies to farmers who were impacted by a wide slate of tariffs that year. Photos: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

Canola is even more uncertain. Penner sells grain to a local crusher, which in turn exports to the United States. Canola products are Manitoba’s largest American export, and experts predict it will bear the brunt of tariffs. Penner says the commodity is also vulnerable to political instabilities at home — a federal election is looming and a new government could indirectly impact how much canola is produced and used in Canada — and canola producers have been left to watch and wait before the impacts are fully understood.

“That’s why we grow a quarter of the farm to wheat, canola, oats and soybeans, to manage that risk,” Penner says. “[We’re] not throwing all our eggs in one basket.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., it’s precisely the crops Wilts grows — corn and soybeans — that stand to be most affected by a trade war. They’re the country’s biggest farm export, together accounting for a quarter of all agricultural exports. For more than two dozen states, including Minnesota, Canada is a farmer’s largest market.

“I want to have our best trading partners to the north have a good relationship and it’s hard to do that when you have tariffs,” Wilts says.

Manitoba farmers worry canola prices will suffer if tariffs are put in place. Some cross-border canola trade agreements have already been put on pause as buyers wait for clarity on tariffs. Photo: Tim Smith / The Narwhal

For corn and soybean farmers, talk of tariffs is a sour dose of déjà vu. Midway through his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on a raft of goods from China, Canada, Mexico and other nations. The retaliation — particularly from China, which imposed its own 25 per cent tariff on American soybeans — cost farmers billions.

“Our soybeans went from about $10 a bushel to about $7 a bushel — and that does not work in this economy,” Wilts says. “That will put a lot of farmers out of business within a year or two.”

Minnesota farmer Harmon Wilts works with political advocacy groups — as well as his suppliers in Canada and the U.S. — to encourage policies and practices that strengthen relationships between farmers either side of the border. Photo: Supplied by Climate FieldView

Wilts is involved in the political side of farming — part of advocacy groups like the Minnesota Farmers Union, the National Farm Bureau and the National Corn Growers association — and supports lobbying efforts to convince American lawmakers that tariffs aren’t good for agricultural business. He’s planning a trip to Washington, D.C., in the spring with the American Coalition for Ethanol, where he serves as a board member, to advocate for measures that keep farms profitable.

“We’re about at a break even right now with prices — at best,” Wilts says. “I think the biggest thing has been to show legislators exactly what will happen if this happens. We can’t afford to lose any more farmers than we are now. We need to find a way to bring the next generation in.”

American farmers depend on Canadian potash — tariffs could hike costs

It’s not just the exchange of food that American farmers are worried about. As threats of a cross-border trade war gain traction, Canadian politicians have publicly mulled the possibility of an export tax on commodities Americans may struggle to find elsewhere. Energy products and critical minerals like uranium and potash top those lists.

Potash, in particular, is among Canada’s most significant exports.

A catch-all term for minerals rich in potassium, potash is one of three key ingredients in fertilizer, making it vital to food production. Canada lists potash as a critical mineral; American lawmakers have lobbied to see it designated in the States, too.

About a third of the global potash supply comes from 11 mines in southern Saskatchewan, where the remnants of an ancient inland ocean form the largest potassium deposit in the world. Canada exports about 20 million tonnes of the rose-coloured rock each year, mostly to American farmers.

“Potash is very important to our operation,” Wilts says. “A very good chunk of it does come from our trading partners in Canada.”

Canada produces more than 22 million tonnes of potash — a fertilizer ingredient — every year, compared to just 430,000 tonnes produced in the U.S. Photo: Elena Bionysheva-Abramova / iStock

Fertilizer is already in the ground for the 2025 growing season, but the next year and beyond are full of unknowns. If tariffs or export taxes drive up the cost of fertilizer, Wilts will either need to cut back on potassium inputs, which could be bad for yield, or strike a deal with suppliers to lock in a price before tariffs are announced. In the last weeks of January, he says, those conversations are already underway.

“I’ve got about 25 different people that help me with things: my seed supplier, my fertilizer supplier. I want to have a good relationship with them,” he says.

Manitoba’s lone potash producer shares the sentiment.

The Prairie Evaporite Formation — that ancient, potassium-rich ocean bed — stretches about 25 kilometres into western Manitoba, where Daymon Guillas has spent the better part of two decades trying to get his home province into the potash game.

As of 2023, the Potash and Agri Development Corporation of Manitoba successfully made its way onto the market. It expects to extract a modest 250,000 tonnes annually once it scales up its Harrowby-area mine, just west of Russell near the Saskatchewan border.

Daymon Guillas, president of Manitoba’s only active potash mine, says potash is critical to food security. Potassium from his company’s mine is sold to customers across North America, but he is not worried about the potential impact of tariffs. Photo: Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press

Though the mine is still in its infancy, Guillas says he isn’t worried about the impact of tariffs on business. The company has secured customers across North America, including many in the United States. Because potash is critical to America’s food security, relationships between Canadian miners and American farmers will outlast any political administration, Guillas says, and he’s not interested in jeopardizing those ties. The company is prepared to take an economic hit if needed to keep supplying its U.S. customers.

“Our business model is always long term, sustainable relationships: you share the pain in bad times and you share the gains in good times,” he says. “We’re going to protect our long term relationships with our U.S. neighbours forever.”

Despite uncertainties, farmers are optimistic about cross-border relationships

In Manitoba, the price of key imports like fuel, farm equipment and phosphate — another fertilizer ingredient — could be impacted by tariffs too. Penner secured a long-term supply of fertilizer and fuel while there was still “certainty in the market.”

It’s part of his efforts to future-proof the farm, though he acknowledges there’s only so much he can prepare for in advance.

“It’s kind of like playing cards. You should never hope you’re going to get the next card, you should look at the cards you’ve got and say: ‘This is what I’ve got now, I’ve got to make the best decision with what I know right now’,” Penner says.

Despite the coming uncertainty, Penner and his University of Manitoba students are trying to stay optimistic. Photo: Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

In the winter, Penner teaches a farm management class at the University of Manitoba, where he recently dedicated a week to discussing current geopolitical issues like tariffs and the upcoming federal election.

“Your head can spin around trying to navigate these things,” he says. But his students are optimistic — a trait he believes helps farmers keep their heads above water.

“There’s times when it absolutely is dark out there,” Penner says. “If we can look at things positively then hopefully we can grow into that and have positive things happen to us.”

Wilts is optimistic, too. Strong cross-border relationships, he believes, can help not only in the present moment, but in the long-term future of both countries’ agricultural sectors.

“I think the ideal outcome is a better relationship than we even have now with our very important trading partners in Canada,” he says.

“A win-lose doesn’t work. So the hope would be that we could come together and find a way to have a win-win situation going forward.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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White-throated sparrows teach each other new songs on migration stop-overs. Dainty Tennessee warblers make unexpectedly long stops in Quebec’s semi-urban forests to replace their flight feathers. Sandpipers use temporary wetlands created by flooding farm fields in the Mississippi Valley.

These are some of the discoveries researchers have made from strapping tiny solar-powered backpacks to migratory songbirds.

For the past 10 years, scientists, educators and organizations across North America and beyond have been contributing to a program that follows the paths of migratory birds on their epic journeys by outfitting them with solar-powered “backpack” trackers no bigger than a dime. It’s an ambitious international network called Motus, which is Latin for movement or motion. 

“Essentially Motus uses radio telemetry to track small flying animals,” Amie MacDonald, a migration scientist with Birds Canada who works on the network in British Columbia, tells The Narwhal. “Mostly that’s birds, but it’s also been used to track bats in a number of studies and there’s even been some work on large insects like monarch butterflies or darner dragonflies.”

Birds Canada, a national conservation group, launched the project about a decade ago, partnering with individuals and organizations around the world. Today, 34 countries contribute to the Motus database and researchers have produced more than 200 publications based on the data. MacDonald says the collaborative nature of the project means it’s easier for researchers to leverage limited conservation funding, which often comes with restrictions based on geographical location. 

Migrating species don’t care about political borders — and neither does climate change. Every year, tens of millions of birds take to the skies along major migratory routes like the Pacific Flyway, an aerial artery that stretches from Alaska to Patagonia. 

Climate change is causing cascading and, in some cases, catastrophic effects on birds’ seasonal stopover locations, breeding grounds and wintering sites, which are also under threat from habitat loss. Drought in California, for instance, reduces available habitat for birds that call both Colombia and British Columbia home for part of the year.

And at home, MacDonald notes there is increasing interest in using the Motus network to study the impact of renewable energy projects. In December, for example, B.C. announced it had approved nine new land-based wind projects, exempting them from the environmental assessment process.

“We’re starting to look at potential opportunities to co-locate Motus stations with offshore wind energy, seeing how Motus can help to understand potential impacts, in terms of placement,” she says. 

From backpacks to towers: how Motus works

The Motus network allows researchers to share information about individual birds as they cross borders using radio tags that operate on the same frequency; each one has a digital identifier. 

“That’s what enables the scale of the system because all of the receivers can be listening for these shared frequencies,” she says. “So animals that get tagged, say, in northern British Columbia, can be detected not only by stations set up by those same projects that I’m working on but also by other stations in Costa Rica that are set up by other folks who are not directly collaborating with me necessarily, but are part of the same Motus network.”

If a bird with a solar-powered backpack flies past a Motus receiver, the data will be recorded and shared to the entire network, including with participants thousands of kilometres away. Scientists and conservationists can start to piece together the details of where birds are going, what their specific needs are and where they might be running into trouble.

“Understanding where birds are going across their full annual cycle can give us more insight into threats they might be facing,” she says.

The Motus network tracked the migration of white-throated sparrows from northern B.C. to study how bird are sharing songs. Photo: James Brosher / Indiana University

White-throated sparrows show ‘cultural transmission of song’

Beyond practical applications, the network is providing fascinating insights into bird behaviour. MacDonald says they tracked the migration routes of white-throated sparrows from northern B.C. to develop a “potential hypothesis” on how the birds are sharing songs.

“It’s not necessarily related to climate or directly related to conservation, but it’s an interesting way that being able to track small birds at long distances can give us some insight into why these things might be happening,” she says.

Different breeding populations — sometimes separated by hundreds of kilometres — somehow learned the same songs, which was initially a head-scratcher for scientists observing the populations. 

“They started singing different variations of their song and then it spread quite quickly,” she says. “But they’re overlapping on migration. On the non-breeding grounds they may be learning these different song variants and then bringing them back to their breeding territories — which is just kind of neat. You can call it kind of a cultural transmission of song.” 

Tracking birds can help answer questions about how drought affects migration

MacDonald started studying birds as a way to spend more time outdoors. One of her current projects is in the Fraser River estuary, collaborating with researchers in California and Mexico, to understand how shorebird physiology and movement is affected by drought in California’s Central Valley. 

“We can work together to track birds in those different locations and hopefully compare how the physiology of the birds differs among the different sites where they spend the non-breeding season and then link that to any potential differences in movement patterns.”

Researchers can use Motus to answer questions about how drought and other factors affect migration — and whether the birds that make it are breeding in sufficient numbers to sustain the population. 

Some of their research feeds into unique conservation projects in California and other states, where rice farmers are paid to flood their fields at specific times of year, creating temporary wetlands that benefit migrating shorebirds and other species. MacDonald is hopeful the work will feed into existing programs to support the birds.

“In B.C., we are tagging birds at another site along the coast that hasn’t been experiencing that level of drought to compare.”

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The U.S.-Canada border is one of the longest and most secure shared borders in the world, but one thing gets through it pretty easily: electricity. 

For more than a century, the two countries have bought and sold power between provinces and states. At any given moment, electricity is flowing in either direction across a shared and extremely massive transmission grid, with the goal of keeping electricity affordable and available, especially when it’s most needed. Canada and America have helped each other during cold snaps, heat waves, droughts and floods. 

While our shared systems have made us susceptible to each other’s energy failures — 50 million people lost power when overgrown trees in Cleveland caused North America’s largest blackout ever, in 2003 — for the most part, this relationship has been seamless. 

All of that could now change. 

In November, U.S. then-president-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican imports as soon as he returned to the White House — unless the two countries improve security along their borders. 

With President Trump’s tariffs delayed but still lingering, as of March 10 a re-elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford is applying a 25 per cent tax on electricity exports the province sends to 1.5 million homes across three neighbouring American states — Minnesota, Michigan and New York. Ford is also threatening to shut down electricity exports entirely should the tariffs remain on the table. He previously described flipping the power switch as an option of “last resort,” but now says he would do so “with a smile on my face” if the tariffs apply in April.  

“I want to inflict as much pain as we possibly can,” Ford told reporters on March 4. 

This marks the first major threat to the two countries’ shared electricity grid — and it’s a big one. The impact wouldn’t just affect Ontario or its bordering states; it could have repercussions for affordable, reliable electricity across both countries. 

But the ability to keep the lights on across the border depends on whether political bluster turns into action, and how big it all blows up. The tensions are already high: Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has visited Washington, D.C., twice already, once for Trump’s inauguration day with a message of energy collaboration and once more during the election campaign to meet with American governors.

The Narwhal reached out to Lecce, along with the governors of Minnesota and Michigan for comment. None responded by the time of publication. New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s office shared her March 4 remarks to Politico in which she cited recent conversations with Ford where he assured her “he would not hurt New York.” 

She said they agreed to work together through this crisis, at least in whatever way is in their power, and noted, “we do not have a target on our backs from Canada, because we have positive relationships with them.”

Here’s everything you need to know about this developing situation. 

Canada and the U.S. have a shared power grid system that has worked seamlessly for more than a century, connecting Ontario’s energy supply to millions of homes south of the border. Photo: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal

Which Canadian provinces send America electricity?

Canada began sending electricity to the U.S. in 1909, when the first transmission line was built connecting the two countries. Today — 116 years later — every Canadian province along the border is electrically interconnected with at least one U.S. state. There are more than 31 cross-border transmission lines across both countries. 

How does Alberta’s electricity grid actually work?

That means the countries can easily work together to balance out fluctuations in energy needs. For example, during extreme winter weather in the U.S. in 2021, Canadian electricity companies sent increased electricity to those that needed it: an act that wasn’t just friendly, but kept the heat on as temperatures plummeted to less than -20 C in most parts of the central and southern U.S. (that’s less than -4 F for any Americans reading this). 

Ontario is the largest electricity-exporting province, followed by Quebec, while Michigan, New York and Minnesota are the largest electricity importers.

Why has Canada integrated its electricity system with America’s? 

Simply put: we produce too much! And the U.S. population is much, much bigger. 

Ontario’s very large nuclear supply, hydro plants and renewable energy sources collectively produce more electricity than the province of less than 17 million people uses on a regular basis. Nuclear facilities aren’t easily turned on and off, so Ontario sells largely emissions-free electricity to the U.S. overnight for cheap. (The alternative is letting that surplus electricity go to waste.) 

Quebec also produces more hydroelectric power than it uses. That’s why it has long-term export contracts to supply electricity to New York State — home to almost 20 million people. It’s also a major source of revenue for the provincial government. 

In total, Canada exports enough electricity to power 4.5 million U.S. homes.

Power transmission lines link Canadian utilities to the United States as part of a complex and highly interconnected power system that sees electricity flow back and forth between the two countries. Map: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Does America sell electricity to Canada? 

Yes, and we might need more of it soon. 

Ontario’s nuclear production has shrunk as aging plants are shut down or refurbished, while drought conditions have made hydroelectricity less reliable in British Columbia and Quebec. Meanwhile, a growing population and energy-hungry technology has put greater demands on Canada’s supply. 

The Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages supply and demand in Ontario, reported last year the province may have to consider increasing the amount of electricity it imports from the U.S, even as it rushes to build new power plants and find new sources of power. 

Ontario needs a lot more electricity — AI is part of the reason. Here’s what you need to know

The balance is already shifting: by fall 2023, monthly average U.S. electricity exports to Canada increased by 70 per cent, and imports decreased by 36 per cent. 

Last year, British Columbia became a major importer of electricity; 20 per cent of the province’s electricity came from America.

On the prairies, imports and exports are minimal, and the one line connecting Alberta to Montana has been at the centre of a legal battle with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Canada’s wettest province faces historic drought — and a precarious new future

How has politics affected the Canada-U.S. electricity relationship before? 

On the whole, the shared grid has operated with relatively few discussions of tariffs or trade barriers. The disputes have more frequently been between jurisdictions or electricity producers and utilities. Communities have sometimes opposed electricity projects on the other side of the border when they fear it might affect their local environments. 

Why American fossil fuel companies and environmentalists are ganging up on Hydro-Québec

Premier Doug Ford has been threatening to cut American states like New York and Michigan off from Ontario’s power. Could he do that?

He could. 

The Ontario government has the power to instruct the Independent Electricity System Operator to limit electricity exports, which would theoretically impact the amount of energy neighbouring American states have access to. 

There’s one snag. The re-elected Ford government, now embarking on its third term, hasn’t officially been sworn in. To both increase the price of electricity exports and shut them down, the government would need to table legislation directing Ontario’s electricity utilities and operators. The premier told reporters on March 4 he has instructed the secretary of cabinet, who serves as the head of the public service during election campaigns, to “find a way to move more quickly on this, come up with a solution and come up with it immediately.” 

Ontario Energy Minister Lecce told The Globe and Mail that ministry officials have created plans for the surcharge on electricity exports and tentatively cutting off power entirely. The Independent Electricity System Operator did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment by the time of publication.

If Ontario reduced or eliminated electricity sales to American states, what would be the impact there and at home?

The electricity grid really is one big machine, so it won’t function nearly as well if we cut it in half. 

Two energy experts told The Narwhal the immediate impact would likely be marginal in American states, which could make up for lost Ontario electricity by tapping into local sources of power kept in reserve, mostly fossil fuels. The result would be a grid that was more expensive to operate, much dirtier and less reliable on both sides of the border. Plus, Ontario’s electricity producers would see a financial loss, which might increase costs for domestic users. 

If Ontario was in an emergency situation during a charged political battle, like a winter storm, it wouldn’t be able to rely immediately on U.S. electricity, as it can now. It would have to work more closely with Manitoba and Quebec.

All of this is hypothetical, though. We’d have to see the details of Ford’s move, if and when it happens, and how various jurisdictions respond. 

Doug Ford also proposed a working group on cross-border energy policy. How is this different from what’s already happening?

It’s not that different! 

Ford has proposed an energy alliance, called Fortress Am-Can, between the two countries that would “enhance and build out” the interconnected grid among other things. The same players likely involved in any new working group — including utilities from both countries and government officials — already meet regularly to discuss and negotiate interprovincial and cross-border energy issues. 

But it can’t hurt to strengthen these connections, especially if Trump’s tariff threat materializes. People and businesses on both sides of the border need reliable electricity, which so far has come via collaboration and co-operation.

—With files from Drew Anderson

Updated on Mar. 4, 2025 at 3:42 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include information and quotes about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs being applied to Canada on March 4, and the Doug Ford government’s decision to put a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to three U.S. states in response.

Updated on Mar. 10, 2025 at 10:26 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include that a surcharge on electricity exports from Ontario to the U.S. has been applied as of March 10.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warnings of a growing liability 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Incentivize better designs and ongoing reclamation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No protections from disaster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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