The Line Creek mine, located approximately 25 kilometres north of Sparwood in southeastern B.C.Supplied
Thomas Axworthy is the public policy chair at Massey College at the University of Toronto. Wyatt Petryshen is the mining policy and impacts researcher at Wildsight, an organization working to protect biodiversity in British Columbia’s Southern Rocky Mountain and Columbia regions.
Global Affairs Canada and the U.S. State Department will hold their biannual meeting over the week of Oct. 17, and there is a critical matter that the Canadian government would apparently like to keep off the agenda.
In B.C.’s Southern Rocky Mountains, coal mines are leaching heavy metals from mine waste rock piles, poisoning the rivers and lakes of the massive transboundary Elk-Kootenay watershed that B.C. shares with Montana and Idaho.
This is not a story about stopping mines. In fact, the “ask” is so reasonable it is hard to understand why anyone – including the mining company – would not agree.
The problem is selenium – a trace element essential in the human body in tiny quantities but catastrophic in large amounts. Selenium is leaching from the waste rock piles generated by Teck Resources’ Elk Valley mines in extraordinary quantities.
Selenium levels in rivers and lakes are now many times the safe limit – especially across the U.S. border, causing mutations and reproductive problems in fish, and if concentrations continue to rise, posing a potential risk to human health.
Western mining boom puts salmon species at risk, study warns
The six governments of the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation, which includes four in Canada and two in the United States, have been raising the alarm for more than 10 years. In that time, Teck’s coal sales have accounted for $2.5-billion of its $3.2-billion second-quarter gross profits in 2022. The company has constructed active water treatment facilities, but they have been insufficient in halting the increasing selenium levels entering the Elk-Kootenay watershed. Teck has yet to publicly disclose the percentage of mine-contaminated waters they treat monthly.
Each passing day sends more selenium into this transboundary watershed, adding to the fallout that will take centuries to clear. Closing the mines is not an option – they are a massive economic generator and the metallurgical coal produced is currently required to manufacture steel. Besides, we need Teck to increase the mitigation work already under way.
We certainly do not need more toxic abandoned mines as a fight over cleanup drags on. We have enough of those already.
The transboundary Ktunaxa Nation wants the matter referred to the International Joint Commission (IJC), which exists to address such issues under the Boundary Waters Treaty. The idea is to create an Indigenous-led watershed board, consisting of interested parties and top experts, to find solutions for the selenium problem.
The U.S. State Department has asked for a joint referral with Canada for over a year. A joint referral would consist of both governments instructing the IJC to form a watershed board for the Elk-Kootenay watershed. The six IJC commissioners – three Canadian, three American – wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unanimously requesting the same. U.S. President Joe Biden has endorsed the request. Environmentalists and scientists all agree on the need.
The Kootenay Transboundary Coalition is a group of NGOs, including Wildsight, that has been working to resolve the selenium contamination problem in the Elk-Kootenay watershed. The coalition asked Teck – which publicizes its corporate responsibility, environmental leadership, and respectful relations with Indigenous peoples – to declare its support for the referral. As a sign of good faith, Teck was also asked to press pause on any new mine expansion plans – not a big deal, given the years-long time frame it would take for proposals to get through the Environmental Assessment process.
In its written response, Teck did not respond to the request, but it clearly emphasized its commitment to working with all stakeholders to address the selenium contamination problem.
This leaves the federal and B.C. governments. One might think they would be on board. The referral would be in line with their stated commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and environmental protection, and the mines would continue to operate.
One would be wrong. This summer, the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation received a letter from Global Affairs announcing a decision to reject the referral. Government ministers immediately backtracked in the face of outrage from the Ktunaxa Nation – saying there was no final decision, but no indication of support for a referral was provided.
So, it is a good bet that Global Affairs would like this to go away at the next meeting. But, after being ignored for a year, the U.S. State Department will likely have other plans.