Tribes worry a Canadian mine could poison Washington salmon - Crosscut

Shared rivers

The Skagit River’s 150-mile-long watershed begins at Allison Pass high in B.C.’s Cascades, and for decades Washington and British Columbia have quarreled over it. A series of dams were built on Washington’s portion of the river in the 1920s and ’30s — including Ross Dam, which, with the other dams on the river, supplies about 20% of Seattle City Light’s power, and which created a 24-mile namesake lake that extends into British Columbia.

In 1984, City Light signed a treaty agreeing not to build a higher dam in return for assurances from B.C. that it would keep the river free from pollution. The cross-border Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission was created that same year to resolve future disputes.

In mid-2018, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan wrote a scathing letter to British Columbia Premier John Horgan and the commission on behalf of City Light, taking issue with plans to log and mine the headwaters. The projects, she said, would threaten the city’s $77 million conservation efforts to recover threatened chinook salmon. The Skagit accounts for about 80% of chinook in Puget Sound — the preferred food of the region’s embattled orcas.

“The Skagit is the last best hope for chinook salmon in Puget Sound,” says Rawhouser, the North Cascades National Park aquatic ecologist.

A more recent letter from City Light in May 2019 took issue with the exploratory mining project, citing inadequate environmental protections in the plan. “The collecting pond they have for the wastewater is way too small, and our estimate is it’ll fill up in about 10 minutes,” says Lynn Best, chief environmental officer of City Light.

And Imperial Metals’ record of environmental safety has opponents worried: In 2014, an earthen dam holding back a tailing pond at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley mine in south central British Columbia collapsed, sending 24 million cubic meters of wastewater laden with arsenic, lead, selenium and copper into Quesnel Lake. It was one of Canada’s worst environmental disasters, and may have had a disastrous impact on one of B.C.’s most robust sockeye salmon runs. Who will pay for restoration and cleanup remains in dispute.

Officials with the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources denied a request for an interview but said in an email statement that statutory decision makers — a group of nonpolitical technical staff in the ministry — are still reviewing the mining proposal.

“Statutory decision makers have a responsibility to complete a thorough and comprehensive review, and to consider all relevant information and perspectives,” the statement said, “including feedback received from First Nations, environmental organizations and the public.”

The Skagit is just one of many rivers in Washington threatened by B.C.’s enthusiasm for mining, says Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest. By his organization’s count, there are 33 active or proposed mines within 60 miles of B.C’s southern border. He cites the Copper Mountain Mine situated above the Similkameen River, which flows into central Washington’s Okanogan River. “The tailings pond there is three times the size of the one that blew out at Mount Polley,” says Friedman. “And it’s an earthen dam. It’s terrifying, this thing just sitting there. It’s a time bomb.”

Conservation Northwest has called for reforms to British Columbia’s mining regulations — especially provisions that require mining companies to prove they can cover the costs of a catastrophic spill. The current system doesn’t require restoration of damaged watersheds and allows companies to avoid cleanup costs by declaring bankruptcy.

According to Holly Tally, a spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, a new financial assurance policy is under development, but the ministry wouldn’t make details of the new rules public until the process is finished.

Indigenous groups join in opposition

Brian Cladoosby is chairman of the Swinomish Tribe, whose reservation is in the flat, wide floodplains of the Skagit River delta. The Swinomish have been fishing for salmon in the Skagit and Puget Sound for thousands of years. 

“We’re known as the salmon people,” Cladoosby says. “We put away up to 40,000 pounds of salmon that we purchase or catch. And we freeze that salmon and we eat it throughout the year, whether it's funerals, weddings, or birthdays. It’s our greatest natural resource.”

Since he began fishing in the 1970s, Cladoosby has seen runs decline precipitously. “In 1975, we would start the third week of June,” he says. “And we’d basically fish continually right through until the end of December with only a few weeks off in between the runs. We’d have the king salmon, then we’d have the pink salmon, then we’d have the silver salmon, then we’d have the chum salmon, then the steelhead.”

Today, things are different. “Now we'll start in June to fish on the hatchery kings,” Cladoosby says, “and we'll probably fish about two or three weeks for that. Then we’ll fish in July for two or three weeks with sockeye. And if the silver runs — and they haven't been that good in the last few years — we’ll start in September and fish through September and then we’re done for the year.”

Both the Swinomish and the Upper Skagit are involved in a cross-border annual summit of 66 Indigenous groups called the Coast Salish Gathering, which also includes First Nations from coastal British Columbia and other tribes in Western Washington. 

“Headwaters are special,” says Schuyler, chairman of the Upper Skagit Tribe. “That’s where it all begins. You have a duty to think about what you do, and the effects it has on what’s downstream.”

Schuyler notes that even though the Washington tribes don’t have standing with the B.C. government, they’ve consulted with B.C. First Nations in order to make sure their concerns are heard. “We were pleased to see that logging was banned in the headwaters, and we hope that translates into the same sort of protections from mining,” Cladoosby says. “We need fresh, clean cold water for the salmon.”

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https://crosscut.com/2020/02/tribes-worry-canadian-mine-could-poison-washington-salmon

2020-02-21 13:01:09Z
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