Wildsight-commissioned report estimates $6.4-billion bill for partial cleanup of Elk River

A local environmental group is reacting to a new report which suggests a multi-billion dollar bill on partial cleanup of water pollution in the Elk River from coal mining.

Wildsight says it has commissioned a report which reveals it would cost at least $6.4 billion to reverse rising selenium concentrations in the transboundary water body.

Wildsight’s mining policy researcher Simon Weibe says the findings were compiled by consulting firm Burgess Environmental, and is much more expensive than the 1.9 billion dollars initially reported by mining giant Teck.

“We’ve talked to the federal government,” Weibe says. “We’re going to continue talking them as the [local mining giant Teck’s] sale to Glencore is investigated under the Investment Canada Act on the federal side of things. We’re going to submit this report to the IGAC investigation. They have a little bit of power in terms of making recommendations in terms of what needs to actually be done.”

Weibe is hopeful that the report will gain attention from Glencore, the company who is purchasing Teck’s Elk Valley Resources, and the federal government.

Recently, the Canadian and US governments have agreed to seek a study on pollution in local transboundary water bodies through the International Joint Commission.

See more information from Wildsight, and a link to the report, below:

A new Wildsight-commissioned report has revealed it will cost at least $6.4 billion to reverse rising selenium concentrations in Canadian and United States waterways due to toxic runoff from British Columbia’s Elk Valley coal mines.

Selenium contamination from the Teck-owned mines has been a topic of increasing concern over the past decade, with concentrations consistently breaching both B.C. and Montana’s water quality standards.

The report, which was completed by independent consulting firm Burgess Environmental Ltd, calculates what it will cost to implement Teck’s current plan to build water treatment plants to 2027 and operate them for 60 years.

“The $6.4 billion figure that Burgess Environmental has calculated is particularly concerning because it is vastly more than Teck’s $1.9 billion reclamation security is set at, meaning they’ve severely underplayed the problem and B.C. taxpayers stand to foot a multi-billion-dollar bill if anything goes wrong,” says Simon Wiebe, Mining Policy and Impacts Researcher at Wildsight.

A reclamation security is a financial assurance, often referred to as a bond, that mining companies must provide to the province to cover environmental reclamation and remediation costs in case of emergency. It is designed to ensure the financial burden associated with clean-up costs falls on industry rather than taxpayers.

“Our report calculates only the cost of remediating part of the selenium contamination in the Kootenay/ai watershed from the Elk Valley mines,” Simon says. “The true cost of cleaning up environmental damage from these mines will be far greater once land reclamation, groundwater remediation, treatment of other water contaminants, and monitoring are taken into account,” he says.

“This report is strong evidence that the amount held by British Columbia is not going to be nearly enough to fix the selenium problem, let alone other environmental damage, and that must be rectified.”

The report comes as Teck prepares to sell a majority stake of its Elk Valley coal mines to Swiss mining giant Glencore, which has publicly declared its intention to spin off its coal assets within two years. The Canadian government is currently reviewing the proposed sale under the Investment Canada Act.

“We hope that both Glencore and the Canadian government will pay close attention to this report as they consider the sale, to ensure accountability for the selenium crisis is maintained throughout the transfer of ownership,” Simon says. “This is already an international environmental disaster, and it could still worsen.”

“Teck’s current strategy, which this report’s calculations are based on, would only remove half of the selenium produced by current mining operations. Moving forward, more and more waste rock will be produced, leading to more selenium being released, possibly requiring even more water treatment facilities,” Simon says.

Selenium concentrations have more than quadrupled in the Kootenay/ai watershed over the past 38 years, with levels regularly exceeding those considered safe for aquatic life and human health. The watershed includes communities such as the B.C. city of Fernie, Lake Koocanusa on the Canadian-United States border, and water courses flowing through Montana and Idaho.

After years of stalled talks, Canada, the U.S. and the Ktunaxa Nation last week announced they’ve agreed to refer the selenium pollution problem to the International Joint Commission, a neutral third party which is now tasked with investigating and recommending solutions.

To read the full report, visit: https://wildsight.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-18-Teck-Coal-Final-Report_Reduced.pdf

– Simon Weibe – Mining Policy and Impacts Researcher, Wildsight (Article includes statement, link and image supplied by Wildsight)