Alaska’s congressional delegation is making a renewed pitch to the Biden administration for binding protections against potential environmental damage from British Columbia mines located near the Canadian headwaters of Southeast Alaska rivers.
Their concerns were heightened after learning of the heap leach pad failure at the Eagle Gold Mine near the village of Mayo in the Yukon in June, the delegation said on Friday, Aug. 16.
“Without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. communities and resources, such as salmon, without any mechanism for recourse or compensation,” said Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both R-Alaska, and Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska.
While understanding that the copper and critical minerals extracted from Canadian mines are key to U.S. and allied national security and resource development, “there is no need to sacrifice environmental protections in order to safeguard our security and power our communities,” the delegation said.
They urged the Biden administration in a Aug. 13 letter to support a call for Canada to clean up the abandoned Tulsequah Chief Mine, which has been polluting international waters for more than 66 years. They also requested that the U.S. and Canadian governments, and transboundary U.S. states and Canadian provinces, Indigenous groups and communities establish an international framework to prevent and resolve disputes in transboundary waters, most likely under the International Joint Commission and the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent -Lang said that the state of Alaska has worked with their counterparts in British Columbia and that the province now has bonding requirements for their mines. Vincent-Lang said that he, Alaska commissioners John Boyle of the Department of Natural Resources and Emma Poken of the Department of Environmental Conservation meet twice a year with provincial officials and their last meeting was in early August.
Breanna Walker, director for Salmon Beyond Borders, in Juneau, said that the progress on cleaning up the Tulsequah Chief Mine has been positive, but she noted that even though the mine closed decades ago, it continues to pollute the Taku River. Tribes downstream need to be included in the process of the cleanup and consulted on protection of the river environment from all past, current and future mining operations in British Columbia.
“The recent cyanide disaster and fish kills at Canada’s Eagle gold mine in the Yukon watershed, and the tenth anniversary of the massive mine waste dam failure at Canada’s Mount Polley mine in B.C., make clear that Tribes and Alaskans need seats at the table when it comes to shaping the future of our shared wild salmon rivers,” Walker said.
