Two fish-bearing creeks will be used for 2.3 billion tonnes of toxic tailings from the proposed Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine in northwest B.C., wiping out habitat for several populations of small Dolly Varden fish.

Seabridge Gold Inc. has been given federal government approval to use upper tributaries of the North Treaty and South Teigen Creeks, which flow into the Nass and Bell-Irving rivers, for tailings from the planned gold, copper and molybdenum mine 65 kilometres northwest of Stewart and 30 kilometres from the Alaska border.

Once in operation, KSM is set to become the largest open pit mine in North America. Construction is set to begin in 2017.

While the company has pledged to compensate for the loss with development of additional fish habitat in nearby streams and will relocate about 30,000 fish from the affected creeks, Alaskans say they were not consulted, despite a recently-signed Memorandum of Understanding between B.C. and Alaska.

There are also growing concerns on the Alaskan side of the border that Canada is making a habit of allowing fish-bearing streams to be used for tailings.

“This just underscores our frustration about really being shut out of the process,” said Heather Hardcastle of Juneau-based Salmon Beyond Borders, pointing out that fish do not abide by national boundaries.

Seabridge plans to build 23-kilometre tunnels to take the mining waste to the approved watersheds on the Canadian side of the border but the closest watershed is the Unuk River, one of Alaska’s premier salmon rivers.

Rendering of the KSM mine showing the tailings management area. Image: Rivers Without Borders

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders emphasized that what happens to salmon and steelhead trout in the Bell-Irving and Nass rivers affects Alaska fishermen.

“Tailings are the most toxic of materials and they would be draining into world-class salmon and steelhead rivers,” he said.

Hardcastle and Zimmer question why the Canadian government is handing out amendments to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations (MMER) to allow fish habitat to be used for tailings.

“These MMER amendments have become almost a de facto process. The extraordinary has become the normal way of doing business,” Zimmer said.

“It seems like this is becoming the standard in Canada and B.C., to authorise the filling-in of fish-bearing water bodies with toxic tailings in perpetuity. We saw the same authority granted at Red Chris last year.”

Red Chris, another B.C. mine close to the Alaska border, is owned by Imperial Metals, the same company that owns the Mount Polley mine, where the tailings dam collapsed in 2014 sending 25 million cubic metres of sludge and tailings flooding into the Quesnel watershed.

After the Mount Polley disaster an expert engineering panel recommended that B.C. move to dry stack tailings, a system of pressing about 85 per cent of the moisture from tailings and then stacking them in a pile.

However, companies say it is too expensive to move to dry stacking and the KSM mine will have a 239-metre earthen dam — one of the highest tailings pond dams in the world — holding back two billion tonnes of tailings.

“Just the fact that they are able to build these massive tailings facilities is really maddening,” Hardcastle said.

Toxic tailings must be treated forever and that is a long time, Zimmer said.

“It’s not as if acid mine drainage stops in 200 years. It’s not as if it becomes magically non-toxic and what bank account is then going to exist to deal with the problems? It’s almost like having radioactive waste dumps,” he said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada media spokesman Mark Johnson said in an emailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada that depositing of “deleterious substances in waters frequented by fish” requires the proponent to come up with a fish habitat compensation plan.

At the KSM site, compensation for the loss of 10.6 hectares of fish habitat will be creation of 18.2 hectares of fish habitat and relocation of the fish.

“Seabridge has developed a fish salvage strategy to ensure that the fish are relocated to suitable water bodies within the Teigen and Treaty creeks watersheds as well as other mitigation measures to monitor the plan,” Johnson wrote.

Mine owners must test the run-off as it is required “that mine effluent not be acutely lethal to fish,” he said.

Since the regulations came into force in 2002, permission has been given for 27 bodies of fish-bearing water, associated with 12 mines, to be used to store tailings, Johnson said.

“The KSM project will be the 13th mine to have an authorized tailings impoundment area in a fish-frequented water body,” he said.

Seabridge looked at 14 alternatives for managing the tailings of which four were potentially feasible, and the creek plan was assessed as the best, Johnson wrote.

Brent Murphy, Seabridge vice-president of environmental affairs, said there will be no significant downstream effects from using the creeks for tailings.

“And there will absolutely not be any effect on the Nass,” he said.

In addition to the assessment by the federal government there has been a public comment period and extensive consultation with indigenous groups and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Murphy said.

“It’s a very rigorous, step-by-step process. These things are not decided willy-nilly,” he said.

However, others, such as Fred Olsen Jr. of the United Tribal Transboundary Working Group, believe that poisoning lakes and rivers for the sake of the mining industry shows remarkable cynicism.

“This is not the world I was promised,” he said.

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Water quality in a tributary of one of Southeast Alaska’s prime salmon rivers will improve once a new mine opens on the B.C. side of the border according to spokesmen for Seabridge Gold Inc, the Toronto-based company planning to open the Kerr-Sulpherets-Mitchell (KSM) mine.

The copper, gold and molybdenum mine, 65 kilometres northwest of Stewart and 30 kilometres from the Alaska border, received federal and provincial environmental assessment approvals last year and the company is now seeking a joint venture partner for the $5.4-billion project.

But the prospect of a massive mine close to a tributary that runs into the Unuk River has alarmed Alaskan fishing, First Nations and environmental groups who say the risk is unacceptable and are pushing for transboundary mining issues to be referred to the International Joint Commission.

“The long term risks of KSM far outweigh any short-term improvements to water quality the mine may create,” Chris Zimmer, Rivers Without Borders Alaska campaign director, said.

The KSM tailings pond, with a massive 239-metre tailings dam, will be built in the Bell Irving/Nass watershed in B.C., but the mine operation will be close to Sulpherets Creek which runs into the Unuk River.

“The open pits and waste rock piles are located in (the Unuk) watershed,” Heather Hardcastle of Salmon Beyond Borders said.

“They’re essentially using the Unuk, all the way up to the border as a mixing zone.”

However, Brent Murphy, Seabridge Gold vice president environmental affairs, in an interview with DeSmog Canada, said water quality in the creek is already bad because of natural erosion of copper, iron and zinc deposits.

“The acidity will basically eat your boots off,” he said.

Federal and provincial regulators agree there will not be any impact in Alaska from the mine, Murphy said.

“The operation of the KSM water management system will, in fact, improve the overall water quality,” he said, pointing to company photos of discoloured creek water.

“We will treat the water that comes into contact with the mine site and improve the water running into Sulphurets Creek and ultimately the Unuk River,” Murphy said.

But Alaskan groups say the photos are misleading and point to a 2014 report by Skeena Wild Conservation Trust that concluded KSM would release metals into the Unuk watershed that would exceed levels known to have serious impacts on salmon.

“I am especially concerned when people make statements to the effect that they can improve natural systems. Seems the height of hubris,” said Guy Archibald, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Inside Passage waterkeeper coordinator.

“There is more complexity in a mud puddle than science will ever understand and a massive intervention such as the KSM mine will no doubt have massive unforeseen negative consequences.”

Following the 2014 collapse of the Mount Polley tailings pond dam there has been increased concern about earthen tailings dams and the expert panel looking into the disaster recommended that mining companies should adopt best available technologies and consider dry stacking tailings when possible.

However, Peter Williams, Seabridge vice-president of technical services said location is the paramount concern when choosing how to dispose of tailings and, after considering dry stacking, it was decided the KSM site was ideal for wet tailings, with a lined tailings pond to ensure no discharge into the environment.

“We have put it into a valley and most of the walls are valley walls, so they are very strong,” he said.

“It makes this location very safe.”

The u-shaped valley will have gently-sloping dams at either end, constructed of sand from the tailings, Murphy said.

That is very different from the Mount Polley dam which consisted of a steeply-sloping ring dyke constructed of locally-sourced till material, he said.

“Most importantly, after treatment, water from the proposed KSM facility will be discharged on an annual basis, preventing the build-up of any water within the facility as occurred at Mount Polley where there was no treatment of water for discharge,” he said.

Zimmer, who emphasized that Alaskan groups are concerned about the effect of the mine on any rivers, whether Canadian or Alaskan, said one of the major worries is what happens over time.

“What happens after 250 years? What if the water treatment fails or doesn’t work as proposed — Seabridge has no contingency plans for this,” he said.

Williams said there should be no concerns after closure as, after the tailings are topped and revegetated, there will be minimal water flow.

During the six-and-a-half-year review process, Seabridge held numerous meetings with Alaskan groups and regulators, including a public meeting in Ketchikan, Murphy said.

There was also a detailed assessment by independent federal regulators so there was no need for a panel review — as requested by Alaskans — because it would duplicate work already done, Murphy said.

Neither would a referral to the International Joint Commission be the correct process, Murphy believes.

“In our opinion [the IJC] is a political dispute resolution process and we are continuing to support efforts of the B.C. and Alaska governments who are working on increasing cooperation between the two governments on transboundary projects and we encourage them to work towards a memorandum of understanding,” he said.

But Zimmer said most of the meetings were open only to agency and company officials and many questions remain — such as lack of funds to deal with major accidents or proof that Seabridge can treat water for selenium.

“The arrogance demonstrated by Seabridge’s blind faith in their engineering in the face of the forces of Mother Nature and time, is the same arrogance that resulted in the Titanic, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Mount Polley,” he said.

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