US looks to mine in Canada, where pollution may spill over the border

Tribes and legislators across both countries are concerned that expanding mining will put pressure on already suffering ecosystems

Climate technologies require enormous amounts of metal. I’m Ian Morse, and this is Green Rocks, a newsletter that doesn’t want dirty mining to ruin clean energy.

Canada is a mining nation. Companies, scientists and government officials have built up more than 150 years of expertise in digging up unique ore from Newfoundland to British Columbia. These provinces and others are regularly ranked highly in mining “attractiveness” surveys, largely because laws have been able to safeguard investments and guarantee growth and returns. Professionals have also been able to export their mining expertise: It’s home to 75% of the world’s mining companies, and more than an eighth of global mineral investments flow just this country. Half the world’s public mining companies are listed here, although it has a far smaller portion of actual mines.

Canada feels like a natural place for a top-consuming country like the US to seek out minerals for its much-needed renewable energy aims. It produces 13 of materials that the US has deemed ‘critical.’ Both governments earlier this year promised to strengthen the cross-border supply chains for battery materials like copper, cobalt, nickel and graphite. All the better, too, considering the US government is increasingly under fire for permitting domestic projects that may infringe on Indigenous rights and pollute waterways.

In pursuit of minerals and the wealth they could bring, the US Department of Commerce held a closed-door meeting in March with American companies about expanding into Canada. Some of those companies expressed their excitement about cross-border collaboration to Reuters, which emphasized mining problems in other parts of the world.

If the US is intent on sourcing important materials from its northern neighbor, it’s worthwhile to dig into how that will happen. The mining landscape doesn’t seem all that different from the problems the US is trying to escape. Some impacts, for example, literally spill across the border.

If you like visuals, these are hotspots for particular minerals. (Source)

Copper Mountain Mine is one project that has embraced the energy transition and leveraged it as it aims to expand. It’s one of the biggest copper mines in Canada, and it sits in British Columbia, just across the border with the US. Copper Mountain’s CEO told Business Vancouver recently that “copper is a critical element in our transition to a global green energy economy. Wind turbines, electric vehicles and energy distribution systems all rely on copper, and we expect demand will continue to grow.”

The company’s marketing statements buttress its expansion plans, both to boost output as well as to grow its waste storage facility. The planned expansion includes raising a tailings dam higher than Vancouver’s tallest skyscraper. It also includes discharging wastewater into the Similkameen River at triple the rate it currently does. Copper Mountain Mining had been fined for discharging too much wastewater into the Similkameen river in 2020. The mine, like most others, produces more waste than metal. The tailings dam expansion has so far proceeded without an environmental assessment.

“We endeavour to carry out all our activities in a conscientious and respectful manner and encourage judicious environmental stewardship,” the company says.

The Narwhal @thenarwhalca

Vancouver’s tallest skyscraper could be facing some competition — in the form of a proposed 255-metre high tailings pond at the Copper Mountain mine in southern B.C. The possible expansion is sparking a lot of cross-border concern. Via @Sevawood

thenarwhal.caB.C.’s Copper Mountain mine proposes major tailings pond expansion, sparking cross-border concern | The NarwhalThe expansion could increase the height of a dam holding back mining waste to 255 metres — taller than Vancouver’s highest skyscraper — without requiring an environmental assessment

Many of the anxieties about expanding waste facilities originate from a disastrous accident at Mount Polley in 2014. Millions of tons of waste broke through the dam, polluting critical salmon habitats, prompting a state of emergency over drinking water, and leaving taxpayers to foot restoration bills. Copper Mountain’s expansion would make its dam four times larger than Mount Polley’s.

“British Columbia very much wants to position itself as a responsible mining jurisdiction for the energy transition,” says Nikki Skuce, director of Northern Confluence. “And we as community groups think that BC has a ways to go to improve tailings safety, regulation around water management, ensuring polluters pay, and updating colonial laws.”

In the wake of Mount Polley, Skuce and others have scrutinized dated laws that allow companies to escape the risk of their own mining operations at the expense of First Nations and clean water. The province, for example, doesn’t require companies prove they can pay for reclamation after closure, an approach used in many places to ensure an abandoned mine can be rehabilitated.

Similar to the foundational US law on mining, BC’s mining law does not require Indigenous consent, although BC has enacted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Surveys show that 80% of respondents in BC support the requirement to obtain consent, and around half of Vancouver’s population would be more inclined to vote for politicians if they targeted mining reform.

Meanwhile, non-Native people are increasingly understanding that residential schools, which removed Native children from their lands, were heinously violent and deadly places and enabled settler access to minerals.

“The settlement and colonization of British Columbia is completely intertwined with mining,” Skuce says.

Copper Mountain Mine, with its tailing facility around the blue area.

Pollution has occurred already without a tailings dam collapse, writes Rob Edward, former Chief of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band. For decades, people have been unable to eat the river’s fish for generations because contaminants leach into waterways from mines and wastewater dumping. More projects, including one owned by the same owner as Mount Polley, threaten rivers that span the border.

Just as rivers haven’t obeyed borders, the mine waste they could carry also doesn’t. International laws require both countries prevent pollution from crossing borders, but mining projects have come under the spotlight for a legacy of uncontrolled pollution. Tribes across the Pacific Northwest have declared a “salmon emergency” as a result.

For example, the Copper Mountain Mine sits at the headwaters of the Similkameen River, which becomes the Okanogan River when it enters Washington State, where I happen to live. Legislators here wrote to the BC Premier, worried at expanding large-scale mining and suggesting areas to focus reform. The 25 wrote: “Without strict regulations, consistent inspections, and financial assurances including full bonding, existing and proposed mining in the headwaters of our shared river basins can pose threats to the water and communities in both British Columbia and Washington.”

On the Canadian Border with Alaska, a similar problem is playing out. US Senators last month wrote to the Secretary of State, requesting that he work with BC ensure that watersheds that cross borders are not polluted by mines. Transborder mining pollution has also been the subject of a congressional hearing with representatives from both countries and Tribal Nations.

Copper Mountain is one of several mines identified as the “Dirty Dozen” in a report from BC Mining Law Reform, which was co-edited by Skuce. Other projects that tout their world-saving minerals are beginning to pop up all over Canada. In Newfoundland, a company told investors its rare earths project would build a “secure, sustainable future.” A project exploring cobalt in Quebec is backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos money, the latter of whom believes mining should move to space. Members of the Atikamekw of Manawan First Nation blockaded a graphite project that had not received its free, prior, and informed consent. Here are five other projects that includes lithium and nickel.

The Canadian government has centered the mining industry in its energy transition plans. The federal minister of Natural Resources, Seamus O’Regan, Jr. recently authored a few opinion pieces promoting the industry, declaring “this is mining’s moment.” MiningWatch Canada, an NGO, criticized the minister for crossing “an ethical line”, considering the minister is also meant to regulate the industry.

“In conclusion,” MiningWatch wrote, “we invite Minister O’Regan to listen to all Canadians and to hear the growing call made by independent scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and organizations around the world to carefully rethink our economy, support a just transition, and not repeat the mistakes of the past.”