Four provincial governments strategized on a “co-ordinated approach” to overhaul proposed federal regulations aimed at reducing water pollution from coal mines, according to an internal briefing note from Alberta’s environment ministry.

The federal government has proposed the new regulations to reduce the harm of contaminated wastewater from coal mines on fish and fish habitat, but is behind schedule from previously announced goals and has been unable to even publish a draft version of the new rules.

Three of the four provinces, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, are directly affected by the federal proposal since they are the only provinces with active coal mining. While the fourth province, Nova Scotia, has a long history of coal mining, its last active coal mine closed in 2020.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has held multiple rounds of consultation with provincial governments, industry and other stakeholders on the coal mining effluent regulations over the last several years and as of February 2020, final rules were expected to be published this fall.

Instead, additional consultations will be held in the coming months and final regulations are now expected in 2023.

An Alberta Environment and Parks document, recently released by the B.C. government through freedom of information legislation, provides new insight into what has been going on behind the scenes, outlining how deputy ministers from the four provinces planned a private meeting in October 2020 to discuss their concerns about the federal plan and “strategize” about how to “better influence proposed changes” to regulations.

The document, labelled as a draft, also outlined a meeting agenda and listed some of their arguments against the federal proposal, claiming that parts of proposed regulations were “unnecessary” and would have a “significant impact on the industry and the economies” as well as infringe on provincial jurisdiction. 

The provinces also argued that the federal approach did not address different situations and risks at various mines.

“There is significant difference between the coal mines and their environmental impacts across the country and this should be reflected in the approach,” the document said.

The meeting agenda also set aside time to discuss their “areas of consensus and opportunities for alignment” as well as their “options for messaging back to the federal government.”  

David Khan, a lawyer with environmental law charity Ecojustice, said in an interview that the tactics from the provincial government are giving mines more years to pollute and also opening the door for new projects to start up under weaker rules. 

“The delays only benefit industry,” Khan told The Narwhal.

Khan also said that the federal approach to these new regulations has been “watered down” in previous consultations.

There are longstanding calls for federal action to address pollution from coal mining, particularly from environmental groups in B.C. where there are significant concerns about the impact of wastewater from metallurgical coal mines in the east Kootenay region.

The aim of the proposed federal regulations is to reduce the risk of contaminants, such as selenium, from coal mine wastewater to aquatic environments, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement.

‘Confidential advice’ for Alberta deputy minister

The document is marked as “confidential advice” to Bev Yee, Alberta’s deputy minister of environment and parks.

Under the heading “Alberta,” the briefing note says, “the proposed (coal mining effluent regulations) could have significant negative economic impacts on Alberta and Canadian communities.”

“At minimum, the proposed regulatory changes will have cost implications for the coal sector, yet unknown impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystem health in Alberta,” it says.

The rest of the briefing note was censored by the B.C. government before it was released to The Narwhal. 

In recent years, government officials from B.C., Alberta and the federal government have been lobbied by industry over the proposed coal mining effluent regulations, lobbying registries show.

In B.C, for instance, the Mining Association of BC has met with high level officials, including deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers in the ministries of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation at least 15 times in the last two years about the new regulations.

In 2020, the Coal Association of Canada also met with B.C. government officials at least seven times seeking, “the support of the Government of B.C., through the Ministries of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and Environment and Climate Change in advocating to the Government of Canada the importance of coal mining to Canada’s economy and the ability, effectiveness and practicality of existing provincial regulatory systems,” lobbying records show.

Meanwhile, federal lobbying records show the Coal Association of Canada also met at least 12 times that year with federal government officials, including once with the ministers of Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada, about the proposed regulations among other things. 

Asked to respond to the provinces’ concerns, Environment and Climate Change Canada said, “the federal Coal Mining Effluent Regulations would reduce the risks of harmful substances released from coal mines to the aquatic environment by setting national effluent quality standards.”

The federal department did not respond directly when asked whether it agrees with the provinces’ concerns that there would be potential economic impacts as a result of new regulations.

Environment and Climate Change Canada is now expecting to publish the first draft of the proposed regulations in late 2022. 

At that point, it will also publish a regulatory impact analysis detailing the estimated environmental benefits of the new standards, as well as potential effects on “health, safety, and social and economic well-being,” the statement said.  

Environmental lawyer says briefing note a sign of governments ‘captured by the mining industry’

Khan said the briefing note is evidence of “governments captured by the mining industry attempting to water down the federal government’s attempts to properly regulate the effluent from coal mining, which affects an area of direct federal jurisdiction.”

“This is what B.C. has been doing for quite a while,” he said.

Selenium, an element that can cause deformities and reproductive issues in fish, has been leaching from piles of waste rock into local waterways in B.C.’s Elk Valley region for decades. 

While Teck Resources, which operates four metallurgical coal mines in the Elk Valley, has spent almost $1 billion on water treatment to try to address the issue, there are concerns selenium could continue to pollute rivers in both Canada and the U.S. for centuries, particularly with several new coal mines proposed in the area.

In a statement, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said the province “has a robust regulatory framework that governs industry.”

An area based management plan is in place and informs decisions related to environmental assessments and waste discharge permits for the Elk Valley region.

“The province continues to work with the Ktunaxa Nation Council on the process and scope of potential amendments to the area based management plan,” the statement said. 

A spokesperson for B.C.’s Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation Ministry, meanwhile, said the province looks “forward to providing feedback to (Environment and Climate Change Canada) once we have a better understanding of what is currently being proposed in the discussion paper and engagement that we understand is targeted for later in the fall.”

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

He added that the company is “committed to operating in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada pitched multi-pronged approach to mine waste rules last year

While it remains to be seen how the federal approach to its proposed regulations has changed in the intervening months, a technical briefing from February 2020 shows Environment and Climate Change Canada was proposing varying selenium standards for existing mines, new mines and existing mines in the Elk Valley.

Under the “general approach” mine wastewater would have to be collected and released into the environment at “final discharge points.” Average monthly selenium concentrations in mine effluent would be limited to 10 parts per billion for existing mines and five parts per billion for new mines.

According to the technical briefing, mines that start operating three years or more after the regulations are brought into force would be considered new mines and subject to the more stringent wastewater standards. 

The weakest standards would apply to Teck’s existing mines in the Elk Valley.  

As of early 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada had proposed that for existing mines in the Elk Valley, the initial selenium standards would be based on the highest average selenium levels detected during baseline measurements taken two and three years after the regulations come into force. Those standards would get progressively stronger, but by 16 years after the new rules are established, selenium levels in waterways downstream of the mines could still be up to 40 parts per billion.

And the existing mines in the Elk Valley would continue to measure selenium levels at environmental compliance points downstream of the operations, as they currently do. This means the mine wastewater is diluted by river water before selenium concentrations are measured, unlike the rules for other mines where selenium concentrations would be measured before the wastewater is mixed with the river. 

Currently, Teck’s mines are regulated by a provincial permit that sets limits on how much selenium and other contaminants can be released to the environment and is based on concentrations detected at these compliance points downriver. Selenium limits vary by location but are as high as a monthly average of 90 parts per billion at one location in the Fording River.

B.C.’s general water quality guidelines, meanwhile, suggest selenium should be limited to two parts per billion to protect aquatic life from the harmful effects of the element.

Fish deformities linked to mine pollution in B.C. river

Studies conducted by Environment and Climate Change Canada have already found significant impacts on fish downstream of Teck’s mines.

Fish hatched from eggs tested for selenium in June and July 2012 from the Upper Fording River downstream of mining operations for instance, showed “increasing rates and degrees of cranial-facial and spinal deformities and increasing rates and degrees of edema (tissue swelling) that impaired feeding and swimming behaviour,” according to the 2014 interim expert witness report “Environmental Sampling in Areas affected by Coal Mining in the Elk and Fording River Watersheds of South Eastern British Columbia” prepared for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

Water concentrations of selenium as high as 30 parts per billion were detected in the Upper Fording River during this period.

When selenium concentrations in eggs exceeded 20 micrograms per gram dry weight there was a “significant” decrease in survival, the study found. 

The average concentration in fish eggs detected during the study was 26.7 micrograms per gram dry weight. At that concentration “it is estimated that 180,794 Westlope Cutthroat Trout swim up fry are lost in the Upper Fording River each year due to selenium poisoning,” the report says.

B.C.’s guideline for selenium in egg tissue is 11 micrograms per gram dry weight. 

Teck pleaded guilty earlier this year to Fisheries Act violations for releasing selenium and other pollutants from its mines in 2012 and was ordered to pay $60 million in penalties.

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

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

Saskatchewan calls for site-specific regulations

Neither Alberta Environment and Parks nor Nova Scotia Environment responded to The Narwhal’s request for comment on the briefing note or their concerns about the proposed federal regulations.

A spokesperson for Saskatchewan’s Environment Ministry said in a statement to The Narwhal that the proposed federal coal mining effluent regulations “will be financially onerous for coal mining operations in Saskatchewan, without necessarily providing any additional protection to the environment.”

“New requirements for testing, reporting and monitoring would result in a large financial cost and administrative burden” on coal companies “already affected by Environment and Climate Change Canada phasing out traditional coal-fired power generation by 2030,” it said.

In December 2018, the federal government announced plans to phase out coal-fired electricity by 2030, in light of not only the climate change impacts of coal-fired electricity generation, but also the detrimental health impacts of burning coal.

The statement added that the Saskatchewan government wants to see site-specific regulations that account for selenium contributions from other sectors such as agriculture.

“Saskatchewan’s soils and aquatic receiving environments can have high background levels already, making it difficult to assign a limit without considering background values,” the statement said.

While Saskatchewan has a water quality guideline for selenium, it is not listed in the permits for coal mines in the province because the effluent is “discharged over land and may never discharge into fish-bearing waters,” according to a spokesperson for the province’s Environment Ministry. 

John Pomeroy, the director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for Hydrology, said in an email to The Narwhal that the province “may be arguing that some of the effluence is in areas that are ‘non-contributing’ to streamflow in normal years.”

But several factors, including wetland drainage, digging of ditches to streams, as well as increased extreme rainfall across the prairies increases the risk that run-off from these areas could flow into streams even in cases where they may not have previously, he explained.

“So, I am not convinced that Saskatchewan is as exceptional as it might have been once,” he said.

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Officials with the Cariboo Regional District declared a local state of emergency Wednesday after millions of cubic metres of contaminated tailings water from the Mount Polley mine flooded Hazeltine Creek early Tuesday morning, spilling into Quesnel Lake. Water drinking and water use bans have been issued for Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, Cariboo Creek, and the Quesnel and Cariboo River systems, up to the Fraser River, according to the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines.

The breach, caused by the collapse of a berm supporting a lake of mining waste that spanned four square kilometres, released an estimated 10 million cubic metres of water and slurry that contains toxic processing wastes including arsenic and mercury into salmon spawning and drinking waters.

The tailings pond at Mount Polley mine, operated by Imperial Metals, was used to dispose of 84,000 kilograms of arsenic, 10,000 kg of cadmium, 38,000kg of lead and 562 kg of mercury in 2013, according to company data released to Environment Canada.

Imperial Metals mines both gold and copper on Mount Polley.

A video released by the Cariboo Regional Discrict shows the scope and extent of the Mount Polley Mine tailings breach.

“I apologize for what happened,” Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch told a press conference yesterday. “If you asked me two weeks ago if this could have happened, I would have said it couldn’t.”

Kynoch said the company can only speculate on the cause of the tailings pond failure and said an investigation is needed.

He said the quality of the tailings is “close to drinking water quality,” adding “there’s almost everything in it but at low levels…No mercury, very low arsenic and very low other metals.”

A screen shot from Google Maps shows the approximate location of the breach, near Likely, B.C.

The provincial Ministry of Environment in B.C. said it issued repeated warning to Imperial Metals about the Mount Polley tailings pond, according to the CBC. Ministry spokesperson Kim Franklin to the CBC her office had issued five warnings in May alone, the most recent concerning wastewater height in the pond.

Franklin also said the company requested permits to discharge increasing amounts of wastewater from the mine, which led to an independent overview in 2009.

Brian Olding, an environmental consultant who carried out the assessment, said the company allowed pond levels to get too high. “It means the water is rising so you have to build the walls of the tailings lagoon higher as you go,” Olding told the CBC.

In his report Olding said the company would need to eliminate 1.4 million cubic metres of water on an annual basis to maintain stable levels in its tailings facility.

Gerald MacBurney, a former foreman at the mine, said he warned management at Mount Polley about concerns he had with the tailings enclosure. He said Imperial Metals added five times the amount of water to the tailings pond than was originally planned for after the company decided to expand its operations.

Bill Bennett, B.C. minister of energy and mines, said the spill is a “serious incident that should not have happened.”

Bennett, who is in the area, said the company has been fairly compliant and safe throughout the years.

“From the air it’s a true disaster. It looks like a combination of a serious avalanche, [mixed with] millions and millions of litres of water having gone down a fairly steep grade. It’s changed the creek bottom from about six feet wide to about 150 metres wide, so that gives you some idea of the force of all of this water when it went down.”

“It’s unprecedented in Canada for this to happen,” he said.

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A third leak recently discovered on Apache Canada’s property near Zama City in northwestern Alberta has released an estimated 1.8 million litres of wastewater onto 5 hectares of land, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

The spill was discovered on Friday, October 25th after an operator investigated a volume discrepancy at Apache’s Shekilie site, reports the Northern Journal. The leak is believed to have begun on October 3rd, according to Apache.

The released water is a waste product of Apache’s oil and gas operations in the area. Apache characterizes its operations near Zama as using “a novel enhanced oil recovery method to produce oil from what were once thought to be exhausted wells.”

Reports of the release came just one week after Apache announced it had discerned the cause of a much larger incident that occurred in June, spilling 15.4 million litres of produced water in a 42-hectare area. 

Images of the June spill, released by the Dene Tha to Nathan Vanderklippe, show the high-oil content of the release. According to the AER (formerly the ERCB) roughly 2000 litres of oil were released in the originally estimated 9.5 million gallon spill. 

The spill, caused by a pipeline failure, released produced water into the surrounding forest for nearly one month – May 5th to June 1st – before it was detected. According to Apache, “the failure of the less than five-year-old pipeline was caused by stress corrosion cracking.”

“Apache believes a pinhole in the exterior plastic liner allowed water to leak into the pipe, which mixed with sulphur gas, causing stress corrosion cracking and the sudden failure of the pipe.”

Apache initially reported only 9.5 million litres were spilled, due to “volumes…incorrectly allocated to another injection well.”

A third and much smaller spill was also detected earlier this year.

According to the AER, the cause of the most recent spill remains unknown, although the pipeline “is shut in a depressurized.” Both the AER and Alberta’s Environment and Sustainable Resource Development are present at the site.

The AER reports there are impacts to vegetation although no impacts to water bodies or wildlife have been reported. As of October 31st more than 600,000 litres of the spilled waste water had been recovered, reports the AER. 

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As production in Alberta's oilsands continues to expand, waste byproducts continue to build up as well, from petcoke piles to tailing ponds. Now the energy companies behind the oilsands boom are planning to dump their growing volumes of toxic wastewater into man-made lakes, in the hope that they eventually become natural habitats.

Jeremy van Loon of Business Week writes that Syncrude Canada, Royal Dutch Shell, and ExxonMobil affiliate Imperial Oil "are running out of room to store the contaminated water that is a byproduct of the process used to turn bitumen–a highly viscous form of petroleum–into diesel and other fuels."

By 2022 the monthly output of wastewater from these companies "could turn New York's Central Park into a toxic reservoir 11 feet deep, according to the Pembina Institute," writes van Loon.

To accommodate the growing volume of byproduct, the energy companies have reportedly "obtained permission from provincial authorities to flood abandoned tar sand mines with a mix of tailings and fresh water." According to van Loon, this would "transform northern Alberta into the largest man-made lake district on earth."

Syncrude's Base Mine Lake, on which work began last summer, will measure 2,000 acres when complete, and is expected by the company to "eventually replicate a natural habitat, complete with fish and waterfowl."

Non-profit environmental group Pembina describes these end pit lakes as "high-risk and experimental," noting that "historical data about using end pit lakes as toxic waste dumps are insufficient to determine whether or not they are a safe, long-term tool for reclaiming tailings waste as no example of a functional end pit lake currently exists."

There are about 30 end pit lakes planned for the Athabasca Boreal region, according to Alberta's Cumulative Environment Management Association.

"There's no way to tell how the ecology of these lakes will evolve over time," said Jennifer Grant, director of oilsands at Pembina. "It's all guesswork at this point. It's reckless."

"We're playing Russian roulette with a big part of an important ecosystem," said David Schindler, an ecology professor at the University of Alberta. "Nothing is going to grow in that soup of toxic elements except perhaps a few hydrosulfide bacteria. And all of the unforeseen events are being downplayed."

Syncrude began creating an end pit lake 30 miles north of Fort McMurray this summer, filling in a mine with fresh water from a dam to a depth of 16 feet to keep toxic tailings down at the bottom. According to company spokeswoman Cheryl Robb, trials involving "test ponds" resulted in naturally occurring ecosystems, with microbes helping to break down pollutants.

However, van Loon writes that the "largest test pond was 4 hectares–roughly 1/200th the size of Syncrude's lake."

"The big question we have is how long will it take before the water is clean, how long is it going to take before the littoral zones develop and the shoreline vegetation builds up?" said Robb. "But we're confident in the technology."

One of the major concerns surrounding end pit lakes is the possibility of contaminated water seeping into the boreal ecosystem. In October, "communities bordering Canada's Athabasca River were cautioned not to drink from the waterway after a breach in a coal tailings storage pond dumped 1 billion liters (264 million gallons) of contaminated water into an area west of Edmonton."

According to Pembina, the exact amount of seepage from tailings in Alberta is "either not known or has not been made public," but modelled estimates suggest that "11 to 12.6 million litres of tailings leak from tailings ponds each day."

Image Credit: WhitneyH / Flickr

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Record flooding in the heart of the Alberta tar sands dramatically illustrates their threat to Canada's 'Serengeti', the Mackenzie River basin. Only days before this week's flooding in Fort McMurray, a panel of international science experts warned that the nearly 200 square kilometres of toxic wastewater lakes near rivers like the Athabasca pose a direct threat one of the world's most important ecosystems.

"What happens in the Mackenzie River Basin has global consequences," Henry Vaux, a resource economist at the University of California told DeSmog.

The largest single threat to the Basin is a potential breach in one of the many tailings or wastewater lakes sending the toxic water into the Athabasca River, a major tributary of the Mackenzie said nine Canadian, US and UK scientists convened by the US-based Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy.

A breach in one of the wastewater impoundments in winter "would be virtually impossible to remediate or clean-up," they also warned in their report released Sunday June 9.

Canada will get plenty of international pressure if it does not begin to protect and properly manage this vast region that comprises 20 percent of the entire country Vaux told DeSmog.

That pressure could come very soon. Three days of flooding in the Fort McMurray region has damaged roads, homes and eroded the ground around a main gas line causing a rupture according to media reports. Government and industry officials continue to say the wastewater lakes that the industry calls "tailings ponds" that cover an area that's getting close to twice the size of the City of Vancouver are unaffected. 

More rain is forecast in the region over the next few days.

"Extractive industries should be required to post a substantial performance bond which would be used to cover the costs of site clean-up should the enterprise fail financially or otherwise fail to fully remediate damage and destruction at the site in question," the report recommends.

That recommendation comes just days before the Alberta government acknowledged that oil sands companies have been unable to meet regulations requiring a decrease in the size of the wastewater tailings ponds. These sites have increased in size but Alberta will not impose any penalties and said the rules were too ambitious.

Researchers have compared the Mackenzie Basin to Africa's Serengeti Plain, an area of comparable size. Both ecosystems harbour high biodiversity and biological productivity the experts report. The Basin's global importance is reflected in its role in hemispheric bird migrations — many South American birds nest in the region. It is also important region in helping to stabilize the climate and plays a role in the health of the Arctic Ocean.

The Mackenzie is Canada's longest river, beginning in the Columbia Icefield in the Canadian Rockies and runs 1,800 km to the Arctic Ocean. Major tributary rivers, include the Peace, Athabasca, Liard, Hay, Peel, South Nahanni and Slave. Some 45,000 lakes are in the Mackenzie Basin including the Great Slave, Great Bear and Athabasca.

The Mackenzie Basin is undergoing major changes with temperatures 2C warmer than 30 years ago. Permafrost soils containing hundreds of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases are thawing releasing those gases. The region's extensive peatlands are drying out. Lightning strikes lead to peatland fires that can smoulder for months and even years releasing huge volumes of CO2, said Vaux, who is also Chair of the Rosenberg Forum.

The local climate is additionally affected by the loss of Arctic sea ice. In 2012, the sea ice declined a record 11.83 million square kilometers by September — an area larger than Canada's 10 million sq km.

There is about one month less snow cover now and glaciers in the Canadian Rockies have lost 25 percent of their ice. All of these changes are affecting the amount of water available for the Basin's rivers and lakes.

Though these changes are already significant, "and in some cases border on catastrophic," the report says, climate simulations suggest increased warming will lead to even higher temperatures of a level not seen on Earth in more than 10,000 years.

"Most participating stakeholders believe the region could adapt if the changes occur slowly," says the report. "However, rapid warming will make adaptation considerably more difficult."

Since the Basin encompasses three provinces and two territories it has a history of fragmented governance. The Mackenzie River Basin Board established in the 1990s was supposed to solve that problem but it had little support or funding said Vaux.

The River Basin Board needs to be reinvigorated with an independent scientific advisory council, receive full participation by First Nations and operate independent of governments and industry he said.

"This is the window of opportunity to act before the Mackenzie Basin degrades and becomes more difficult to manage," he said. 

"We hope Canadians will be proactive rather than reactive."

All images from the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy full report The Mackenzie River Basin.

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