Montana-Idaho coalition requests Canadian review of mine expansion
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) After Montana’s selenium pollution limit in Lake Koocanusa was recently upheld, a coalition of conservation organizations and businesses are asking the Canadian government to limit the pollution at its source: the Elk Valley coal mines.
On Wednesday, 34 businesses and organizations from Montana and Idaho sent a letter asking the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate change to designate an independent review panel to review Glencore’s proposed expansion of its Fording River Mine in British Columbia, Canada.
Environment Minister Julie Debrusin has until April 23 to decide whether to convene the review panel. Canadian law authorizes such a panel when Canadian resource extraction projects threaten to pollute or diminish waters shared with the United States.
Elk Valley Resources, formerly Teck Coal Limited and now a subsidiary of Glencore, operates four mines in the Elk Valley that produce 80% of Canada’s metallurgical coal. The current mines are projected to operate for at least another 20 years. But new mines and the proposed expansion at Fording River would extend this lifespan to 48 years.
For decades, contamination has leached from the mines into the Elk River and eventually into Lake Koocanusa, which straddles the Canada-U.S. border. From 1992 to 2012, the amount of selenium entering the lake each year increased fivefold, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. As a result, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality declared Lake Koocanusa impaired by selenium.
Similarly, the state of Idaho designated the Kootenai River, which flows out of Lake Koocanusa, as impaired for selenium under the Clean Water Act. A 2024 USGS study documented that selenium concentrations increased between 2005 and 2021 in the Elk, Kootenai, and Columbia Rivers. Elevated selenium concentrations were found as far as 357 miles downstream in the Columbia River
In 2014, Teck Coal Ltd prepared, and the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment approved, a water quality plan for the Elk River Valley. But the plan did little to stanch the influx of pollution. The plan has only recently been updated, setting targets for selenium, cadmium, nitrate and sulphate.
In 2015, the multi-agency Lake Koocanusa Monitoring and Research Working Group was created to research the problem in order to develop a selenium limit specific to the lake. At higher concentrations, selenium is toxic to aquatic life, causing reproductive impairments that hinder survival and reduce populations. In 2020, Elk Valley Resources was ordered to pay a $60 million fine under Canada’s Fisheries Act for not taking proper steps to limit selenium and calcite pollution, which damaged westslope cutthroat trout populations.
In late 2020, DEQ accepted the working group’s selenium standard of 0.8 micrograms per liter in the lake. Teck Coal and the governor-appointed Montana Board of Environmental Review challenged the limit in 2022, saying it should be less stringent because the U.S. general standard is 1.5 micrograms per liter.
Then last week, a Montana district judge upheld the site-specific selenium standard, saying the Board of Environmental Review had overstepped its authority. But selenium concentrations in Lake Koocanusa have regularly exceeded the standard since 2020, occasionally climbing as high as 3 micrograms per liter measured at the border.
That’s expected to worsen if the expansion at Fording River is approved, allowing Elk Valley Resources to expand the existing mountaintop removal coal mine by approximately 5,000 acres.
“The coal mines in the Elk Valley of B.C. are causing possibly the worst case of selenium pollution in the world—right here in Montana,” said Derf Johnson, Montana Environmental Information Center deputy director, in a release. “We’re asking the Canadian government to take a harder look at the largest proposed expansion currently being considered, and to evaluate its impacts to the water quality and the fishery of our shared watershed. We hope Canada will do the right thing and appoint a review panel, because the consequences of allowing more pollution are significant for Montana.”
In the meantime, the U.S. and Canada signed a March 2024 reference for the International Joint Commission to look into the coal mine pollution that flows across the border, which is likely illegal under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. The Joint Commission appointed a International Elk-Kootenai/y Watershed Study Board to investigate and compile the water quality and ecosystem health information related to the watershed.
The study board was supposed to produce a final report by this September, but a shutdown of the U.S. government and a government labor action in British Columbia last fall delayed their work. So an extension was recently granted until December.
The letter said the Joint Commission study would be far more comprehensive while a review panel would focus just on the mine expansion.
“Proper evaluation of whether a major mining expansion actively undermines Canada’s commitments would be best performed by an Independent Review Panel, and would also benefit from the longer timeline allotted to review panels, given the IJC final report is still being written,” the letter said.
“(British Columbia) has a track record of small fines for poor water quality and slow progress, while giving overly-generous discharge permits that are harmful to aquatic
populations. This has been noticed by Montana and Idaho, which have developed site-specific selenium standards at the border. The public deserves a rigorous, independent
cross-examination of these water quality promises, which are relevant to wildlife, local
communities, and everyone and everything downstream.”
The organizations that signed the letter to the Environmental Minister include Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Montana Chapter, Clark Fork Coalition, Montana Audubon, Montana Conservation Voters, Montana Environmental Information Center, Montana Trout Unlimited, Montana Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Association, The Wilderness Society, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and 350 Montana, among others.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.