VANCOUVER—Two U.S. senators and Alaska government officials have taken long-standing concerns about toxic waste from B.C. mines to an international body created under a century-old treaty that governs transboundary water issues between Canada and the United States.

Some Alaskan officials are not satisfied that B.C. has the regulatory system in place to protect the environment from the impacts of mining, especially as new mines are proposed in the region.

“My longstanding concern is that our neighbors in British Columbia are not meeting a similar high standard with regard to the impacts of hard rock mining on other resources and livelihoods in transboundary watersheds — especially the downstream fisheries that support tribes and coastal communities in Alaska,” said U.S. senator for Alaska Lisa Murkowski in a statement.

U.S. senator for Alaska Dan Sullivan, who also attended the meeting with the International Joint Commission, said in a statement that progress is finally being made on the transboundary mining concerns.

“The best way to build on this momentum is for Canadian officials to work expeditiously to fully and finally remediate the Tulsequah Chief mine to prevent further pollution into the Taku River. This is an issue I’ve been pressing senior Canadian officials on, including Prime Minister Trudeau. I am hopeful we’ll see progress soon,” he said.

For six decades, the Tulsequah Chief copper mine in B.C.’s northwest, about 60 kilometres northeast from Juneau, Alaska, has been discharging acid waste into the Tulsequah River, which flows into the Taku River, before continuing west to the Alaskan coast. This acid forms when sulphides in the rock are exposed to air and water.

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Today there is essentially a deadzone in the Tulsequah River for several kilometres downstream of the mine, where the toxicity is so high that fish and other aquatic species avoid it, said Chris Zimmer, the Alaska campaign director with the environmental organization Rivers Without Borders.

“Thank God we’re not seeing huge fish kills,” he said.

High concentrations of metals, which can be leached from the rock by the acid, have also been detected, Zimmer said, referring to a study conducted for the B.C. government.

Even if it’s not lethal, it can have “detrimental” affects on salmon by affecting their sense of smell and their ability to find food, he said.

Two companies made attempts to revive the mine since it initially closed in 1957, but both fell into receivership. Meanwhile, acid rock drainage continued to pour into the river from the mine, which historically produced copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver.

For years, Indigenous communities and environmental organizations on both sides of the border have been raising concerns about this pollution.

The B.C. government has contracted SNC Lavalin/SRK and Azimuth Consulting to develop a remediation plan for the mine and that process is currently underway. A contract for undertaking the reclamation work itself will be issued through a separate request for proposals once the plan is completed, said Kent Karemaker, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, in a statement.

Earlier this week Murkowski, and other state, federal, Indigenous and local leaders in Alaska, shared their concerns about B.C. mines with members of the International Joint Commission, which was created under the 1909 Boundary Water Treaty.

The commission, which was called on by Murkowski to undertake a fact-finding mission, will also meet with British Columbians on the issue, but no date has been set.

Pierre Béland, the commission’s Canadian co-chair, said at this point the Alaskans are themselves “in a process of fact-finding, they do not have actual measurements of contaminants that originate from B.C.”

U.S. officials are looking at putting in place water quality monitoring programs, he said.

Karemaker said B.C. “shares Alaska’s concerns about the longstanding pollution being discharged in the Tulsequah River from the Tulsequah Mine.”

However, he said, “B.C. has world class standards for mining regulation compliance and enforcement.”

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“We continue to work collaboratively with state government counterparts at the state/provincial level to protect transboundary waters. B.C. and our neighbouring U.S. states have put into place co-operation arrangements and mechanisms that enable us to effectively share information, including monitoring water quality in transboundary watersheds.”

At this point it isn’t clear whether the commission’s process will move beyond fact-finding, but Zimmer said he hopes to see some action, and fast, to clean up the Tulsequah Chief after decades of pollution.

There are much bigger mines than the Tulsequah Chief proposed in the area and he’s concerned that B.C. still doesn’t require companies to set aside money upfront to ensure mines are cleaned up in the end.

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