Amid a global economic slowdown spurred by the spread of COVID-19, Alberta’s government is paving the way for a resurgence of coal mining in the province, a move some observers say threatens sensitive ecosystems that, until June, had been protected for decades.

This spring, the United Conservative Party government rolled back protections that had restricted exploration and prevented open-pit coal mining across parts of the Rocky Mountains and Foothills since 1976.

The decision, which was announced in mid-May and came into force June 1, was framed as part of Alberta’s economic recovery. “Rescinding the outdated coal policy in favour of modern oversight will help attract new investment for an important industry and protect jobs for Albertans,” Energy Minister Sonya Savage said in a statement at the time. 

The provincial economy was hit hard this year, first by the oil price war between Russia and Saudia Arabia, then by an unprecedented plunge in demand for oil due to the pandemic. And as restaurants, movie theatres, hair salons and many other businesses closed their doors to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, unemployment shot up. In June, the province’s unemployment rate was 15.5 per cent.

“As we strengthen our focus on economic recovery and revitalization, we will continue to make common-sense decisions to create certainty and flexibility for industry, while ensuring sensitive lands are protected for Albertans to continue to enjoy,” Savage said in May.

The concern for some Albertans, though, is that the government’s open-for-business stance on coal threatens to destroy a landscape that is important to First Nations and serves as critical habitat for grizzlies, caribou and the Alberta population of westslope cutthroat trout, listed as threatened under the federal Species At Risk Act.

“It’s a backwards move,” said Marlene Poitras, the Assembly of First Nations regional chief for Alberta. The decision to rescind protections was made without adequately consulting with First Nations, she said.

Shaun Fluker, an associate law professor at the University of Calgary, said “the timing is very unfortunate and seems calculated to implement a change like this at a time or a moment when negative feedback or criticism or resistance would be difficult to mount.”

“The government certainly could have waited to make this announcement at a time when more public dialogue was possible and feasible,” he said.

“You could say they used the public health emergency as a cloak to defend against any criticism that might attract.”

Here’s what you may have missed about Alberta’s mid-pandemic bid for coal.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage has said rescinding the coal policy will ‘help attract new investment’ for the mining industry. Photo: Government of Alberta / Flickr

The 1976 Alberta coal policy

In 1976, Alberta released a wide-ranging coal development policy that covered land use planning, royalties, labour requirements, landowner rights and environmental protections. 

Many of these provisions were either not enforced or had previously been replaced with updated measures. Until June 1, the land classification system, which divided the province into four land categories that allowed varying levels of coal exploration and development, was the only portion of the policy that remained in place.

Category 1 lands — where coal leasing, exploration and development were not permitted — will continue to be protected. 

Previously, surface mining was banned on category 2 lands, which included parts of the Rocky Mountains and the Foothills, and exploration and underground development was limited. Exploration was allowed on lands listed as category 3 under the normal process but development in these areas was restricted. Now, restrictions on category 2 and 3 lands have been removed.

Companies with coal agreements on category 2 and 3 lands no longer face development restrictions that had been in place under the 1976 policy. Map: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

According to the Alberta government, the intent of the 1976 coal policy “was to ensure that there were appropriate regulatory and environmental protection measures in place before new coal projects were authorized.” 

While the province says the coal policy is replaced by “modern regulatory processes, integrated planning and land use policies,” some experts are quick to note that regional land use plans have not yet been completed for the entire area previously protected by the coal policy.

The 1976 document “was an overarching policy that gave direction to the regulator and specifically said certain activities are acceptable in this area, but they’re not acceptable in other areas,” explained Brenda Heelan Powell, staff counsel at the Environmental Law Centre.

“That gives a signal to the regulator on cumulative effects and appropriate development,” she said. “And while that could happen through the regional planning, it’s not complete for that entire area.”

A regional plan has been completed for the South Saskatchewan region in southern Alberta, but the planning process is ongoing in the North Saskatchewan region, which includes parts of the Rockies and Foothills, and has yet to begin in other areas.

In the absence of an overarching land-use policy that guards against the cumulative effects of resource development, coal projects are likely to be assessed on a project by project basis, Heelan Powell said.

Alberta has duty to consult First Nations

While Poitras said the government spoke with some Treaty 7 First Nations that would be directly impacted by coal mining, she said others, including some Treaty 6 nations whose traditional lands are affected by the decision, were not consulted.

“We have three numbered treaties in Alberta — 6, 7 and 8 — and any time there’s any impacts to those treaties, the government has a duty to consult,” she said.

The government’s decision to open previously protected lands to coal development has the potential to cause lasting harm, Poitras said.

“We’re stewards of the land and when issues like that occur, where there’s environmental damage that is going to occur…that is a concern to many First Nations.”

“The mountains are sacred to our people for traditional ceremonies and gathering medicines that are harder to get in some other areas,” she said. 

The future of Alberta’s parks

Crow Lake Provincial Park in northern Alberta is one of several parks slated for closure by the UCP government. Photo: Alberta Parks

Earlier this year, Premier Jason Kenney’s government announced plans to transfer the management of 164 sites in the parks system to third parties. The CBC reported that roughly a third of those sites are located on lands where mining restrictions have been lifted.

(Alberta also said it would fully or partially shutter 20 provincial parks, but postponed closing 17 of them to ensure adequate space for camping during the pandemic.)

While Fluker said the decision to close or transfer management of provincial parks and recreation sites was probably aimed at reducing government expenses, other measures are “really about opening up public lands to more economic development, which in Alberta tends to be natural resources development.”

Katie Morrison, the conservation director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Southern Alberta chapter, noted a few of these recreational areas are surrounded by coal leases.

“It shows the risk that these places are under once their protections are removed, but I think it’s also quite indicative of how this government views the value of public lands,” she said.

“They see them as commodities for resource extraction.”

Alberta’s backyard: photos of the ten provincial parks and recreation areas that are now completely shut down

Increase in Alberta mining activity poses threat to at-risk species

Morrison said a lot of the areas previously protected under category 2 of the coal policy are important headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of Albertans downstream.

These areas are also important habitat for grizzly bears, elk, caribou and, significantly, the threatened westslope cutthroat trout (WSCT).

The southwest corner of the province is “really the last stronghold for that species,” Fluker said.

In a recent paper in the Public Land and Resources Law Review, Fluker and his co-author David Mayhood point to overexploitation, habitat destruction and hybridization with introduced species such as rainbow trout as causes for the decline of westslope cutthroat trout in Alberta.

“The story told here about the decline of the Alberta population of WSCT is certainly not an isolated one. Habitat loss is widely understood as the primary cause for the extinction crisis sweeping the planet,” the authors write.

“What is noteworthy about the ongoing decline of the Alberta population of WSCT is that losses continue despite the population falling under the protection of a threatened species legal framework.”

Opening previously protected areas to open-pit coal mining could further strain this already threatened species.

“It really undermines the whole point of the Species At Risk Act if you have a threatened species with very little remaining known critical habitat and you approve a coal mine that basically wipes out some of that habitat and potentially pollutes more of it downstream,” said Fluker, who has been working with a public interest law clinic at the University of Calgary to push for more aggressive protections for cutthroat trout for a number of years.

New coal mines emerging in Alberta as a result of the government’s recent policy change could shape up to be a high-profile battleground between industry and threatened species, Fluker said.

As well as providing key habitat for fish and wildlife, Morrison noted the region is also used for recreation and ranching. 

“Once a mine is built, that is not an area that the public can access, it’s not an area that’s used for grazing or other uses,” she said.

“These mines are massive, mountaintop removal mines,” she said, noting there are concerns not only about the quantity of water used, but also risks of contamination.

In B.C., there have been long-standing concerns about selenium pollution downstream of Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines.

“We can learn from the Elk Valley and other places that went ahead with massive developments and the problems that they’re dealing with now and try to avoid that scenario for ourselves,” she said.

Unique B.C. trout population suffers 93 per cent crash downstream of Teck’s Elk Valley coal mines

UCP government opens doors to coal mining resurgence 

Alberta is already the second largest producer of coal in Canada, and last year 67 per cent of coal produced in the province was subbituminous coal, a lower grade used for electricity generation. According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, subbituminous coal production is expected to decline by more than 90 per cent between 2020 and 2029 with the phase-out of coal-fired electricity.

The new areas available for open-pit coal mining open a window to additional production of metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel.

“Just across the border, the province of British Columbia has a successful metallurgical coal industry and the demand for high-quality steelmaking coal will continue to grow,” Kavi Bal, press secretary to Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage, said in a statement to The Narwhal.

Teck’s Elk Valley metallurgical coal mining operations have come under criticism for their impacts on the environment. Photo: Garth Lenz

A new metallurgical coal mine, the Grassy Mountain project proposed near the Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, is currently going through a joint provincial-federal environmental review. If built, it could more than double production of steelmaking coal in Alberta.

In the areas where restrictions on the issuance of coal leases have recently been lifted, Alberta Energy is offering a first right of refusal to companies that have existing applications for coal rights. 

The Coal Association of Canada did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment. But in May, association president Robin Campbell told CTV there were already multiple companies considering coal mines in the Foothills and that each new mine could employ between 300 and 350 people.

If Grassy Mountain is approved, Morrison said other projects in the exploration phase may decide to move forward with their own mine applications.

It “would give an indication that governments think that is an appropriate use of the landscape,” she said.

Instead, before any new mines are approved Morrison said she wants the province to undertake a detailed land-use planning process to determine whether those landscapes could handle resource development. 

In the meantime, one of the province’s existing mines, which exports thermal coal for electricity generation elsewhere, could face a new hurdle in its efforts to expand. The federal government recently said it is reconsidering its decision from last year to exempt the proposed Vista mine expansion, near Hinton, from a federal impact assessment. 

Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is expected to make a decision by July 30 on whether to proceed with a federal assessment, Moira Kelly, a spokesperson for the minister, said in a statement to The Narwhal. 

“Our government has also launched a strategic assessment on thermal coal to better understand the potential impact of thermal coal mining activity, to ensure effects within federal jurisdiction — especially related to climate change — are fully considered in the federal impact assessment process,” she said.

Life after coal

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

The adult population of genetically unique westslope cutthroat trout in a river in B.C.’s Kootenay region dropped by 93 per cent this past fall compared with 2017 levels, according to a monitoring report from Teck Resources.

The company operates four giant metallurgical coal mines in the Elk Valley region, where levels of selenium pollution, which originates from the mines’ many waste rock piles, have increased steadily for decades.

Teck has conducted fish surveys in the Upper Fording River since 2012. A fall presentation from Teck reviewed by The Narwhal shows that monitoring conducted by contractors in September and October 2019 identified a precipitous decline in adult and juvenile westslope cutthroat trout in the Upper Fording and that such a decline “represents a trigger” for a population crash.

Upper Fording River adult trout counts dropped 93 per cent and juvenile counts dropped 74 per cent from 2017 levels, according to Teck.

In Harmer Creek, near Teck’s Elkview mine, adult fish counts dropped 26 per cent and juveniles 96 per cent. In Grave Creek, near the Line Creek mine, juveniles declined 25 per cent, but counts for adults increased 25 per cent compared to 2018 counts.

“It’s very significant to see that drastic of a drop in numbers for westslope cutthroat trout,” University of Montana biologist Erin Sexton told The Narwhal. “It’s very unfortunate news.”

Sexton began studying selenium in the Elk Valley in the early 2000s and was involved in a process that led to the creation of the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan. It is under this plan that the province has continued permitting Teck’s mining operations, despite growing selenium pollution.

The plan was informed by a 2014 report prepared for Environment and Climate Change Canada by Dennis Lemley, a renowned selenium expert. The report warned that selenium pollution from mining in the Elk Valley was negatively impacting fish and concluded that increases in selenium pollution would inevitably lead to “a total population collapse of sensitive species like the westslope cutthroat trout.”

Sexton said she was disappointed but not surprised to see Teck reporting the population drop. “It’s déjà vu,” she said. 

A meandering bend in the Upper Fording River where high levels of selenium have been measured. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Sexton added it is evident B.C. ignored available science when structuring permits for Teck’s Elk Valley operations. Under the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, the province allows Teck to continue operating its mines as long as the company is working toward a long-term plan to stabilize selenium levels by 2023 and reduce levels after 2030.

“I think for a lot of us who participated in the process to create the plan, it feels like a wasted effort because the province didn’t set any limits that are protective of fish and aquatic life.”

The Elk Valley is a prized spot for fly-fishers, who refer to these unique trout — which have dark freckles, orange gashes along the throat and small teeth lining the mouth — as “cutties.”

Westslope cutthroat trout are only found in a small portion of their original habitat and are thought to be one of the first species to populate B.C. after the last ice age. Pacific populations are listed federally as a species of special concern.

The trout living in the slow-flowing waters of the Upper Fording River are considered genetically distinct because they exist above Josephine Falls, which isolates them from other trout in the Elk and Fording Rivers.

“The Upper Fording is the closest to the biggest mines,” Sexton said, “so it has the highest levels of selenium in the system. As you move away the levels decrease.”

Selenium, a naturally occurring element, is commonly found in coal-rich deposits and is essential to human health in very small doses. While selenium can be toxic to humans at high levels, even small amounts can be harmful to egg-laying creatures, including fish and birds. In trout it can cause spinal and facial deformities, missing gill plates and reproductive failure.

Westslope cutthroat trout showing spinal deformities. Photo: Environment Canada

A westslope cutthroat trout with a missing gill plate, a telltale deformity caused by selenium poisoning. This trout was caught in 2014 in Coal Creek, a tributary of the Elk River. Photo: Environment Canada

Westslope cutthroat trout exhibiting deformities have been found in the Elk Valley with increasing frequency in recent years.

B.C.’s general water quality guidelines recommend selenium levels be kept to two parts billion to protect aquatic life. Yet in waters throughout the Elk Valley, selenium has been measured at levels higher than 150 parts per billion.

Sexton pointed out the province’s guidelines for daily selenium levels in the Upper Fording River allowed 155 parts per billion in 2014 with an expectation they would be reduced to 71 parts per billion by 2023.

“From a scientific perspective, I’ve never understood how the province of B.C. has been able to set these thresholds for the entire Elk River Valley that are dangerous to fish health,” Sexton said.

“I always say that when I read Teck’s permit, it looks to me like the Elk and Fording Rivers are a sacrifice zone.”

In response to emailed questions, David Karn, a spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, said the province is aware of the recent trout monitoring results and “is concerned about the declines identified.”

For decades B.C. failed to address selenium pollution in the Elk Valley. Now no one knows how to stop it.

Karn said third party consultants are investigating the causes of the declines and Teck is reporting to provincial regulators bi-weekly on the findings and its efforts to limit risk. He added that B.C. is working with other provinces and the federal government to oversee the investigation as well as proposed fish population studies this year.

Chris Stannell, public relations manager for Teck, told The Narwhal the “reasons for the lower fish counts are unknown at this time” and the company has put together a team of external experts to evaluate possible causes of the population crash, including “water quality, flow conditions, habitat availability, predation and other factors.”

“We take this issue very seriously,” Stannell wrote in an email. He said the company has invested $437 million to implement the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan and estimates an additional $649 to $690 million will be invested in the region, in large part for water treatment facilities, over the next five years.

In 2014, Teck introduced the $600-million Line Creek water treatment plant, which caused an accidental fish kill six months after coming online. In 2017, the plant was taken offline after Teck discovered the treatment process was releasing a more bioavailable form of selenium into the environment, meaning it was taken up more readily by biotic life. 

Since the plant was recommissioned in 2018, Teck has seen “reductions in selenium concentrations downstream of the operating Line Creek treatment facility,” said Stannell, adding that two more water treatment plants are being built.

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

More mines planned for the Elk Valley

Lars Sander-Green, an analyst with the local conservation group Wildsight, said the population collapse should lead to a change in the way coal mining is done in the Elk Valley. But, he said, that’s far from the case.

“What’s really crazy is even with this massive loss of fish, we still have Teck pushing hard on new mining expansion that would push farther into this river,” Sander-Green said.

Recently Teck began the early consultation process for a major expansion of its Fording River operations, the largest of the company’s mining operations in the Elk Valley. The Castle expansion project would extend the Fording River operations “for decades,” according to a February presentation Teck delivered to the District of Sparwood. According to Teck, the Fording River operations produce 8.5 to 9.5 million tonnes of metallurgical coal for use in steelmaking each year.

“It’s another major expansion but it’s only going to be subject to a B.C. environmental review and not likely a federal review because it’s an expansion and not a new mine,” Sander-Green said.

The proposed expansion comes at the same time as proposals for new Elk Valley mines from three other companies.

“What’s happening with trout suggests things need to change in a big way if we’re going to have fish in that area,” he said. “It creates a lot of concerns about what is going to happen downstream in the long term.”

Concerns across the border have been mounting for several years as the Elk Valley watershed drains into the Koocanusa reservoir, which extends into Montana. Selenium levels are rising in that reservoir.

“This wildlife and these landscapes don’t know political boundaries,” Sexton said. 

Teck coal mine in B.C.’s Elk Valley. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

“I know these things get polarized across international boundaries, but I have a lot in common with people in the Elk Valley and I see it as a shared watershed. I think the U.S. gets pitted against Canada, or Montana against B.C., but I think we should all be being good stewards of our rivers together.”

She added it has been “very complicated and challenging” for U.S. agencies and communities to be collectively outside the decision-making process in B.C., which has permitted increasing mining activity and allowed selenium pollution to grow in the Elk Valley through the decades.

“It creates this complicated environmental challenge for anyone who is a stakeholder in the watershed,” Sexton said, adding there is a frustrating lack of transparency from both B.C. and Teck when it comes to monitoring and sharing raw data.

Canada has no specific, legally binding regulations on the pollution that emanates from coal mines. While such effluent regulations exist for metal mines, specific rules for coal mines have been stuck in limbo for years. 

The most recent draft of the regulations proposes two sets of rules, one for all coal mines and another tailored to Elk Valley operations. 

The rules proposed for Teck’s mines are weaker as a result of years of lobbying, Sander-Green said.

When asked about those lobbying efforts, Teck’s Stannell referred The Narwhal to a 2018 sustainability report that states Teck “remained actively engaged in the review process for the draft regulations through 2018.”

“For Teck, the final design of these regulations is critical for long-term planning for our steelmaking coal operations in Western Canada. We will continue to participate in the review and dialogue process with the Government of Canada in 2019 to help ensure the regulations are well designed and science based.”

Sander-Green said he thinks the federal and provincial governments are capitulating to Teck.

“B.C. has shown again and again they are willing to sacrifice our clean water and fish for coal mining revenue. We’ve seen that for decades now.”

The province first established a task force to address selenium in the late 1990s. 

“Since then problems have been getting worse and worse. A lot of talk but no action,” Sander-Green said.

He said Wildsight is asking for a moratorium on new mining in the Elk Valley. 

“We’re in a big hole and we have to stop digging.”

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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.

If you follow the crystalline waters of the Fording River up the Elk Valley, past Josephine Falls, you’ll discover a small pocket of genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout prized by fly fishers from around the world.

The species is known for sparse, dark freckles that run along the contours of an arched back and the signature orange-pink slits that gouge both sides of its throat. Small teeth line the entirety of its mouth, even under the tongue.

“Cutties,” as they’re affectionately referred to in the bustling fly fishing shops in Fernie, are thought to be one of the first fish species to populate British Columbia after the last ice age. Now found in only in a small fragment of its historic habitat, the species is widely understood to be an indicator of ecosystem health. Pacific populations are currently listed by the federal government as a species of special concern.

The meandering oxbows of the Upper Fording have created the unique conditions for this particular population of westslope cutthroat trout to remain genetically distinct, not having bred or ‘hybridized’ with other nearby populations. Yet these very same gentle waters now threaten to bring an end to this particular lineage of westslope cutthroat trout, first noted in the journals of Lewis and Clark and christened with the scientific name Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi.

The Upper Fording River, where high levels of selenium have been measured, is closed to fly fishing. The river is the namesake of Teck Resource’s Fording River coal mine. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

A westslope cutthroat trout caught by Ryland Nelson in the Elk River and is likely not genetically pure. According to Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Indigenous species of these trout are critically important to protect as they “may be required for attempts to re-establish extirpated subpopulations, and the future preservation of the species as a whole.” Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Selenium pollution, leaching from manmade mountains of waste rock, has inundated the waterways of the Elk Valley, depositing itself in the docile currents of the Fording and Elk Rivers.

“We’ve got westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout throughout the lower reaches of the Elk River,” says Lars Sander-Green, an analyst with the local conservation group Wildsight. “The fish are basically concentrating that selenium both in their tissues but, more importantly, in their eggs and in their ovaries that will cause birth defects and reproductive failures.”

Standing beside a snowy bend in the Upper Fording River, Sander-Green explains how selenium builds throughout the food chain. First, it settles in slow moving waters where it is converted into organic compounds by bacteria. It is then taken up by algae which are eaten by bugs which, in turn, are eaten by fish.

“The main concerns people have with selenium are mostly about the fish,” says the unassuming, soft-spoken analyst with a degree in physics and a penchant for data sets.

As the contaminant accumulates in trout it can lead to ghastly facial and spinal deformities, an absence of the plates that overlay and protect the fish’s fleshy gills and — where deformities make survival impossible — death.

In 2014 an expert report prepared for Environment Canada warned that selenium pollution from mining in the Elk Valley was negatively impacting fish. The report warned that increases in selenium pollution would inevitably lead to “a total population collapse of sensitive species like the westslope cutthroat trout.”

In these 1980 photos, Dr. Lemly, an expert asked to prepare a report on selenium pollution in the Elk Valley for Environment Canada, details spinal deformities of mosquitofish (left) and a red-horse minnow (right) as a result of selenium poisoning in North Carolina from a coal-fired power plant. Photo: A. D. Lemly / Environment Canada

A westslope cutthroat trout with a missing gill plate, a telltale deformity caused by selenium poisoning. This trout was caught in 2014 in Coal Creek, a tributary of the Elk River. Photo: Environment Canada

Waste rock deposits cover a massive section of land at the Fording River coal mine. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

A waste rock dump spans kilometres at a Teck Resource’s mine. Waste rock piles, exposed to the element and growing every day, are what release selenium into the local environment. Rain and melted snow will carry the contaminant into nearby creeks and rivers. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Selenium is often found in coal rich deposits like those underlying much of the Elk Valley, where Teck Resources owns and operates five sprawling metallurgical coal mines. To get at those blackened seams, Teck employs a technique known as cross-valley fill, a bucolic euphemism for mountaintop removal mining.

The mines, easily visible in satellite imagery, are staggering in their scope. Mountains are cut down and blasted into terraced slopes that are slowly separated into piles: marketable coal and spoil. Anything not deemed to be of commercial value is trucked by heavy hauler out to piles that eventually grow into jagged black pyramids — manufactured shapes that do a poor job of mimicking the former mountainsides.

Teck Resources is the world’s second-largest exporter of coal for use in steelmaking, with much of the resource making its way by train to the Westshore Terminals beside the familiar docks of the Tsawwassen ferry. Teck’s Elk Valley mines are some of the largest in Canada — and are poised to expand, despite rising concerns about their growing impact on fish and drinking water.

Westshore Terminals is the largest export facility for coal on the west coast of North America. Westshore ships 19 million tonnes of metallurgical coal each year for Teck. Photo: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

“With this kind of coal mining, open pit or mountaintop removal, there’s a lot of rock between the mountain and the coal,” says Sander-Green, hands tucked into his pockets and shoulders slightly gathered about his neck in an effort to fend off the unseasonable October cold.

“You blast that and truck it over to the next valley, they fill in the mountain valley with this waste rock…and with coal, often there’s some selenium in the rocks…The water trickles down and slowly leaches selenium out of those rocks. It ends up flowing down into these bigger rivers like the Elk and Fording Rivers all the way down into Lake Koocanusa [a reservoir created by Montana’s Libby Dam].”

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

The confluence of the Elk and Fording Rivers. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

The expansive waste rock piles filling in low-lying areas of the Elk Valley are exposed to air and water — the elements necessary to move selenium — all year round. The result is a monumental selenium spill in slow motion.

Selenium is a naturally occurring element and is essential to human health in very small doses but can become toxic at higher levels. It is harmful to aquatic life and other egg-laying creatures, even at low levels. 

In order to safeguard aquatic life, B.C.’s water quality guidelines recommend selenium levels not exceed two parts per billion. Those same guidelines limit selenium in drinking water to 10 parts per billion. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines set safe limits for aquatic life at 5 parts per billion.

Measurements taken throughout the Elk Valley have found selenium levels at 50 or 70 parts per billion. In many cases, levels are higher than 100 parts per billion. (A 2013 study found selenium levels in rivers upstream of the mines at 1 part per billion).

Yet the B.C. government continues to sanction the expansion of Teck’s mining operations, despite a failed water treatment experiment by the company and a distressing new problem: the contamination of drinking water.

Private wells on local farms and a municipal well in the district of Sparwood, home to many of the miners working at Teck’s operations, have been taken offline after showing selenium levels higher than 10 parts per billion, well in excess of what is considered safe for human consumption.

Doug Hill, regional director of mining operations with the B.C. Ministry of Environment, says exceeding B.C.’s water quality guidelines for selenium is not enough of a reason to slow down mining activities.

We’re already over our numbers that we want to see,” Hill says in an interview, before issuing a quick reminder: “Our water quality guidelines, they’re not law in and of themselves. They are used as benchmarks to assess the impacts of mining projects on water quality.”

Asked if he anticipates more contaminated sources of drinking water, Hill hesitates.

“I couldn’t say that we’re at a point now with our groundwater monitoring that we could accurately predict that.”

Bill Hanlon, a local horse breeder and conservationist, manages a property just outside of Sparwood that is a popular destination for hunters seeking proximity to game in the Elk Valley, which is class one bighorn sheep winter range. The private well on that property is contaminated.

Hanlon wants to see a better balance between environmental and economic interests in the Elk Valley and argues, despite the problems with selenium, he believes Teck works hard to be a good neighbour and has helped created protected areas to offset the impacts of mining. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Bill Hanlon, a local guide and conservationist, is worried too much selenium in the Elk Valley ecosystem may take the river to a “tipping point.” Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

“This property here has some of the highest selenium measurements. They test it regularly,” Hanlon says. The property is on the opposite side of the river from the coal mines, prompting Hanlon to ask, “…why is the selenium going this far out in the gravel bed river system?”

Hill says Teck conducted a 2017 groundwater study, currently under review, that will be used by the company to create a “conceptual model” for how groundwater flows and moves throughout the valley.

“It’s complicated,” Hill explains. “The geology there isn’t simple to understand. The selenium is going to behave differently in groundwater than in surface water.”

Hanlon, who is also the chair of the British Columbia Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, says he’s worried by proposals for three new coal mines by three new companies in the Elk Valley. “If we lose this river, if it tips…there’s a lot of livelihood based on this area and on the river itself.”

Fernie airbnb manager and fly fisher, Ryland Nelson. “The clear-cut logging that we see on the hillsides, that’s a lot more in people’s face but this selenium issue is, you know, it’s silent and it is much, much bigger of an issue to the health of this watershed,” Nelson told The Narwhal. Photo: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

“It’s not just the coal mines, it’s cumulative effects and I fear we’re getting near a tipping point in terms of a balance of a healthy environment and a healthy economy. We don’t seem to know when to quit.”

University of Montana biologist Erin Sexton began studying selenium in the Elk Valley nearly two decades ago when the wildlife-rich Flathead Valley, next to the Elk Valley, was being eyed by coal companies. Mining and oil and gas development are now permanently banned in the Flathead Valley.

“We came up to the Elk River in B.C. from Montana in the early 2000s to collect data,” Sexton recalls during an interview. “We were surprised by what we found.”

Sexton said she and her colleagues expected the Elk Valley river system to be impacted by mining, but they did not anticipate the extent of the damage they encountered.

“The issue with selenium is that it’s what we call biphasic, meaning that it goes from good-for-you to toxic in a really tiny window,” she says.

Of particular alarm for Sexton was the near absence of macroinvertebrates, the little bugs — mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies — that feed the local fish populations.

“We’re losing certain species of those very important macroinvertebrates. Ones that are more sensitive to pollution are disappearing and we know they should be here because we found them in the Flathead which is very close,” Sexton says. “Rather than this rich diversity…we found just a few species in the Elk River.”

To the alarm of Montana officials, Lake Koocanusa, fed by the Elk River, is showing signs of increased selenium pollution.

Sexton says selenium contamination is acute directly downstream of the mines. “Whereas further down in the reservoir and in the system, [the effects] are more chronic and will take place in a longer timeframe.” She adds that the overall effects of selenium poisoning can be hard to identify, despite seeing deformities in fish in the Elk.

“It’s kind of a hard problem to detect because the ultimate impact of selenium toxicity is a failure to reproduce so if you’re not seeing those fish in the system, then how do you know that they’re being impacted by selenium?”

In an effort to determine the extent of selenium contamination, one day in October Sexton and colleagues from B.C. and Montana conservation groups hop into a flotilla of canoes, using GPS coordinates to locate the spot in the Koocanusa reservoir where Teck has done water sampling.

Erin Sexton leads a group out on to the Koocanusa Reservoir to conducting independent water testing. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Once the canoes are in position, Sexton takes numerous water samples, using standardized methods developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Basically, we’ll send it back to the lab with a duplicate and then see what we get back,” she says.

Teck and the B.C. government conduct regular water testing, but the raw data is not made available to the public. Some areas, like this particular spot on Lake Koocanusa, aren’t tested year round.

The reservoir can freeze and experience a drop in water levels, creating dangerous cavernous conditions under the ice. It’s a barrier to winter water testing, an important time to test for selenium because low water levels can mean a higher concentration of pollutants, says Sexton, who is among a growing chorus of Montana voices expressing concerns about selenium pollution from Teck’s mines crossing the B.C.-Montana border.

Last July, two U.S. representative on the International Joint Commission, a Canada-U.S. body that oversees a treaty to protect transboundary waters from pollution, went public with criticism that their Canadian counterparts were suppressing science on the health impacts of selenium and relying on out-of-date data rather than on more current studies for an upcoming commission report. The commissioners warned that Teck may not even have the technology necessary to stem the tide of selenium moving from the Elk Valley mines into U.S. waters.

Michael Jamison, senior program manager with the National Parks Conservation Association in Montana, worries that contamination flows directly south, where he lives with his family. What’s happening downstream is bad enough, says Jamison, “but then when you look upstream at what’s happening in B.C. — polluted air, contaminated fish, and wildlife — I don’t know how they handle it…it’s so acute on the northern side of the border.”

Jamison is perplexed by the unabated pace of mining in the Elk Valley, despite pollution levels well above B.C.’s guidelines. In the U.S., companies would never be granted new permits if they were found to be in violation of permit levels, he says. There are also other important differences between industrial operations in B.C. and those south of the border, Jamison notes.

“We have an Endangered Species Act in the U.S. that doesn’t really have a counterpoint in B.C. We have enforceable requirements around wastewater discharge and remaining within the parameters of your permit. Those presumably exist here…it seems like in the U.S. we have rules written in ink, maybe up here they’re written in pencil with an eraser handy…’we’ll adjust the permit.’”

Even if Teck’s Elk Valley operations halted immediately, Jamison says the problems they have created will persist for hundreds of years, likely long after the company ceases to exist.

“These piles of waste, they’re going to be leaching selenium into that system for 700, 1,000 years. Teck’s not going to be around in 1,000 years.”

Some of the many waste rock piles that line coal mining operations all throughout the Elk Valley. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Hill confirms that Teck’s Elk Valley operations are monitored under a valley-wide permit that has short-, medium- and long-terms selenium targets established under the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan. He agrees that selenium pollution from Teck’s mining operations is a long-term problem.

“These legacy waste rock piles there are going to be leaching sulphates and selenium for years to come, regardless of what happens to the mines right now,” Hill says. “It’s going to take long-term sustained action before we see really remarkable changes to water quality.”

The water quality plan established in 2014 focuses only on attempting to stabilize selenium levels in the water until 2023, Hill explains. B.C. does not anticipate that Teck will begin the work of lowering selenium levels in the watershed until the 2030s.

But just how that will happen isn’t clear. Teck introduced a $600 million water treatment plant in 2014 that proved problematic from the start. The plant caused a fish kill in 2014, six months after coming online. In 2017, the plant was taken offline after it was revealed that the treatment process was releasing a more bioavailable form of selenium into the environment, meaning it was taken up more readily by biotic life.

Teck said in a statement that the struggling water treatment facility at its Line Creek operations has been recommissioned and is now back in operation. A second water treatment facility is currently under construction, Teck spokesperson Chris Stannell wrote in an e-mail to The Narwhal.

Teck expects to invest between $850 and $900 million in water treatment facilities over the next five years and is experimenting with ‘saturated rock fill’ methods in an attempt to reduce the amount of selenium entering the environment via waste rock piles, Stannell says.

Teck Resources, which posted profits of $6.1 billion in 2017, was the single largest donor to the BC Liberal party. The practice of corporate political donations has since been phased out in B.C.

Hill acknowledges there have been significant “setbacks” in Teck’s water treatment plans.  

“There’s a lot of different parts and piece to this project and whilst there might be setbacks in one particular area — albeit a really important area, which is the treatment technology — I think we need to continue to plug on and move forward to make this plan work.”

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