Canadian spill gives enviros ammo against U.S. projects

E&E News
By Manuel Quinones
August 6, 2014

The head of Imperial Metals Corp. is apologizing for this week's mine tailings dump breach at the company's Mount Polley copper, gold and silver mine in British Columbia, which sent significant amounts of waste into nearby waterways.

"Our first priority is the health and safety of our employees and neighbours, and we are relieved no loss of life or injury have been reported," said the company in a statement. "We are deeply concerned and are working to mitigate immediate effects and understand the cause."

Meanwhile, environmental advocates on this side of the border are pointing north to argue that this week's waste dump buttresses their warnings against projects like the Pebble copper and gold mine in Alaska.

Lindsey Bloom, an Alaska commercial fisherman and consultant, said companies often tout new mining technology and a "rigorous process for permitting."

"This certainly puts a spotlight on the fallacy," she said.

In its watershed assessment of potential mining impacts in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska, U.S. EPA said a mine like Pebble could include a tailings dam higher than the Washington Monument.

"With all the similarities between Pebble and the Mount Polley copper mine, we're urging the EPA to take immediate action to finalize mine waste restrictions in Bristol Bay," said Kim Williams, executive director of the anti-Pebble group Nunamta Aulukestai.

Watchdogs say it's ironic that U.S. projects like Pebble have pointed to mines in Canada as an example of the industry's improved safety record.

"Our research shows that these tailings dam failures are far more common than the industry wants to admit," said Bonnie Gestring, a Northwestern advocate for Earthworks.

"In the U.S. more than a quarter of the currently operating copper porphyry mines have experienced partial or total tailings pond failures," she said in a statement.

Pebble spokesman Mike Heatwole said company leaders are aware of the Mount Polley incident in British Columbia and are closely following developments, but it shouldn't reflect on their own project.

"It is way too early to speculate about the incident or to make comparisons," he said. "Once further details of the incident become available, we'll take a close look at the information to determine what effect it may have on our project."

Pebble loyalists also say the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act process includes scrutiny of mining's potential impacts, so EPA involvement pre-permitting, including potential restrictions, is inappropriate.

"The Pebble project deserves due process and the environmental review and analysis that have always been afforded to other resource development projects," said Laura Skaer, executive director of the American Exploration & Mining Association.

KSM Mine

Beyond Pebble, environmental activists and Native American leaders have been sounding the alarm about projects to the east, across the Alaska border with Canada.

Bloom said this week's tailings dump spill is a cautionary take against Seabridge Gold Inc.'s Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) project in the Iskut-Stikine River region of British Columbia, about 40 miles from Stewart near the Alaska border.

Advocates say protecting salmon is an issue at Pebble, Mount Polley and KSM, which developers call "one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world" and critics say would be one of the largest open pits on Earth.

"Mount Polley's tailings pond is minuscule when compared to the holding facilities proposed for KSM mine, which spans two watersheds that produce important runs of wild salmon," Dale Kelley, executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association, said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Kelley's group was one of several organizations to ask Alaska's congressional delegation and the U.S. State Department to push for intervention in permitting for KSM and other Canadian projects near Alaska.

And in June, the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution aiming to pressure U.S. authorities. It also questioned the rigor of British Columbia's mine permitting process.

The province signed off on the KSM project last month. It's now under review by the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which is taking comment through Aug. 20.

Seabridge CEO Rudi Fronk said, "This decision confirms that KSM is a well-designed, environmentally responsible project which is technically feasible and offers significant economic benefits to both British Columbia and Canada."

About 2,000 miles away, environmental watchdogs have asked for transboundary scrutiny of mining projects along the Great Lakes, including through the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canada body to coordinate boundary water issues.

Groups including the National Wildlife Federation and the National Parks Conservation Association have also asked EPA to conduct a "cumulative effects assessment" of current and potential mining in the Lake Superior Basin (Greenwire, June 10).

Plus, taking a page from Pebble opponents' playbook, six Chippewa tribal bands are asking EPA to initiate Clean Water Act veto proceedings against Gogebic Taconite LLC's controversial iron mining project in northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior (Greenwire, June 27).

Oregon

Environmental groups and many Oregon residents are pushing for additional mining limits in the southwestern part of the state amid a company's mineral exploration efforts.

Earthworks and the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center helped deliver more than 15,000 petition signatures to the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service yesterday.

Advocates are calling on the Obama administration to withdraw from mineral exploration lands surrounding the North Fork Smith River, Baldface Creek, Rough and Ready Creek, and Hunter Creek.

The groups and residents are particularly concerned about Red Flat Nickel Corp.'s exploration efforts within the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

They say Red Flat has staked mining claims on about 3,000 acres within the North Fork Smith River watershed, plus claims on another 2,000 acres in the headwaters of Hunter Creek and the Pistol River.

An attorney listed as working for the company, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office, has yet to respond to a request for comment.

"There's tremendous support for protecting these valuable public lands from strip mining," Michael Dotson, KS Wild's development director, said in a statement. "The Smith and Illinois Rivers support some of the best salmon runs, highest concentration of rare plants and purest water in the nation."

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden (D) and Jeff Merkley (D) and Rep. Peter DeFazio, top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, have also called for new drilling and mining limits in southwestern Oregon.

"It doesn't take a list to know that Baldface and Rough and Ready creeks are special places deserving of federal protection," said Wyden after the group American Rivers identified those waterways as endangered.

'Entirely disingenuous'

Earthwork's Gestring said, "Without a mineral withdrawal these vital watersheds are at the mercy of 19th century mining policy written before women even had the vote," referring to the 1872 mining law.

National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich called Gestring's argument "entirely disingenuous," citing the number of environmental laws that apply to mining that have been enacted since 1872, including the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

He also asked, "And what has been the change in domestic demand for mineral resources since [President] Grant's time in office?" NMA and other pro-mining groups have been pushing back against efforts to take lands off-limits, amid U.S. dependence on imports for a number of mined minerals.

Last year, the Obama administration extended a prohibition on new mining claims along 14 miles of Oregon's Illinois River, part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

It did the same on more than 5,600 acres along the Chetco River for five years pending possible congressional protections. Both waterways run through the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

In Arizona, the Center for Biological Diversity pressed federal regulators to scrutinize Augusta Resources Corp.'s Rosemont mine near Tucson amid ongoing consultations on Endangered Species Act issues.

And in South Carolina, the Army Corps of Engineers released a final environmental impact statement for Romarco Minerals Inc.'s proposed Haile gold mine, which it found would destroy wetlands and waterways but create several hundred jobs.