August 2023 Update

Nine years ago this month, on August 4, 2014, Imperial Metals' Mount Polley mine waste dam failed, spilling 6.6 billion gallons of toxic mine waste into the pristine wild salmon habitat of Quesnel Lake, British Columbia – the traditional territory of the Xatśūll First Nation.

The mine waste continues to negatively impact Quesnel Lake and the Quesnel River, part of the mighty Fraser River watershed in B.C. and some of the most important wild salmon spawning and rearing areas worldwide. Recent studies have shown that copper concentrations in Quesnel Lake have exceeded Canadian guidelines for protecting aquatic life multiple times since the disaster. In high concentrations, copper is known to negatively impact aquatic ecosystems, especially salmon.

But that’s not all. Less than two years after the mine waste dam failure, B.C. okayed Imperial Metals to restart operations at Mount Polley. And in 2017, B.C. authorized Imperial Metals to pump mine waste directly into Quesnel Lake (because of fears of toxic waste breaching or overtopping the failed mine waste dam). In 2022, B.C. granted Imperial Metals' request to pump wastewater into the lake for three more years - until 2025. A local community group, the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake, have appealed Imperial Metals' permit to no avail.

Despite this less-than-acceptable track record, B.C. continues to operate and develop risky mine waste dams like one that failed at Mount Polley, including the Red Chris mine and waste dam near the headwaters of the transboundary Stikine River. The Red Chris mine is co-owned by Mount Polly mine owner, Imperial Metals.

Over a dozen B.C. gold-copper mines and mine waste dams are proposed or in development in the Stikine-Iskut watershed, including the operating Red Chris mine. Most of these mines include or will include massive mine waste dams, which are prone to failure. Under current regulatory practices, British Columbia is expected to see two mine tailings dam failures every ten years. Two of the mines in the Stikine watershed are so risky that they made it onto the list of the twelve B.C. mines with tailings dams of greatest concern in a 2022 report by Steve Emerman, Ph.D.

Twenty Tribes, First Nations, and municipalities, along with thousands of people in Alaska, B.C., and the Pacific Northwest, are calling for an immediate and permanent ban on new mine waste dams along the transboundary Taku, Stikine, and Unuk Rivers. It's time the U.S. and Canada acknowledge and act on that.

Recently, along with our partner Earthworks, Salmon Beyond Borders submitted comments to the United Nations Environment Assembly before a global meeting next month in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss mine waste (“tailings”) management. We made clear that mine waste dams do not belong in critical, international wild salmon habitat.

Thousands of people across Southeast Alaska, including Tribes and municipalities, are calling for a ban on B.C.'s risky mine waste dams along the transboundary Taku, Stikine, and Unuk Rivers.Wild salmon watersheds are not worth the risk.

Fourth-generation salmon troller Joe Emerson, co-owner of SalmonState Marketplace partner Shoreline Wild Salmon, authored an opinion piece that ran both in the Alaska Beacon and the Juneau Empire.

"Powerful interests should stop targeting Alaska hook and line fishing. They should start targeting the real threat to wild salmon: habitat destruction,” he wrote. “Dozens of planned gold mines just over the border from Alaska will require or already employ massive mine waste dams, sometimes the same design that failed at Mount Polley. They require treatment forever in order to prevent contamination of our wild salmon ecosystems. Some would be some of the largest mines in North America. Downstream fishermen, businesses, community members, and Tribes are being ignored or given a bureaucratic runaround by B.C. when we express concerns, which is why we are urging our elected officials, state and federal, to demand a ban on B.C.’s failure-prone mine waste dams and a temporary pause to new B.C. mining activity in transboundary watersheds until all of us who will be impacted, on both sides of the border, are at the table." Wild salmon, he continued, “are better than gold. They feed us, they create jobs, and, year after year, as long as we don’t mess it up, they come back.”

Help us ensure that B.C. and its mining corporations cannot construct more failure-prone mine waste dams along the Taku, Stikine, and Unuk – the Rivers that Feed Us. Take action >>>

July 2023 Update

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May 2023: Another B.C. Gold Mine and More Barging Proposed for the Taku River

The site of the planned New Polaris mine. Photo by Chris Miller

We thank hundreds of you for recently signing onto a letter for a comment period in B.C.’s Environmental Assessment process for Canagold’s New Polaris gold mine, planned for the transboundary Taku River system. This mine is located on Taku River Tlingit First Nation lands just 37 miles from Juneau, and only 9 miles upstream of the U.S.-Canada border on the Tulsequah River, a major tributary of the Taku. New Polaris is also about 5 miles from the confluence of the Tulsequah and Taku Rivers–and vast, productive wild salmon spawning and rearing wetland habitat. The Taku River watershed is the region’s largest wild salmon producer and is the largest unprotected roadless area on the west coast of North America.

New Polaris is proposed for the site of an old mine called the Polaris Taku that closed in 1951 and is only a few miles downstream of the abandoned, long-polluting Tulsequah Chief mine that B.C. still has not fully cleaned up. Canagold outlined in their initial project description that they plan to make 150-170 yearly barge trips to carry mostly fuel and cyanide over the border during the operational phase, to and from a “Transfer Barge Facility” anchored in Taku Inlet on the Alaska side of the border. As anyone who travels the Taku knows, it’s a tricky river to navigate, with tides, shifting sandbars, and more. Two companies that went bankrupt in the last 20 years trying to reopen the Tulsequah Chief mine were largely unsuccessful in their barging efforts on the Taku, and caused much controversy in Alaska. You’ll hear more from us about upcoming opportunities to speak out about this mine, but in the meantime:

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us 

April 2023: Transboundary Statement from Representative Mary Peltola

Representative Mary Peltola, D-Alaska. Photo by Tyler Bell

Representative Mary Peltola ended the month of April with a win for our wild salmon rivers: a call for an Indigenous- and community-led International Watershed Board for the wild salmon rivers Alaska shares with B.C. The call came as U.S. and Canadian officials met in Washington, D.C. to discuss, among other things, B.C. mines’ ongoing and threatened contamination of transboundary rivers that flow into Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Washington.

“I am calling on the Biden Administration to initiate an International Watershed Board for the Taku, Stikine-Iskut, and Unuk-Nass Rivers along Southeast Alaska’s border with British Columbia,” read Peltola’s statement. “This is the best way to ensure that Alaskan communities and tribes downstream from potential and existing mining sites in B.C. can raise their concerns and participate in an equitable dialogue between our two nations. I am hopeful that the Canadian governments will honor the internationally accepted process as laid out in the Boundary Waters Treaty and allow this critical conversation to take place between all impacted jurisdictions.”   

“We thank Representative Peltola for her leadership and we call on the Biden Administration to act quickly and decisively to implement International Watershed Boards through the International Joint Commission, and to ensure Americans downstream are able to meet Canadians at the table — so that we don’t have to meet them at the disaster cleanup site,” said Salmon Beyond Borders director Breanna Walker.

Wrangell’s KSTK radio covered the story.

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us

April 2023: Tribes and First Nations in AK, WA, ID, MT, & B.C. Send a Joint Letter to B.C./Canada

Tlingit & Haida President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson.

The Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and 11 Aboriginal First Nations and Tribes in all four U.S. states downstream of B.C. sent a powerful letter in April to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier David Eby, calling on them to “honor their legal and ethical obligations and act immediately to protect our recognized traditional territories from legacy, operational, and proposed mining in British Columbia.”

“Pollution from mining in British Columbia has already damaged the integrity of our transboundary ecosystems and threatens to cause irreparable harm….  As rapid climate change increases the frequency of severe weather events—such as unprecedented heat domes and atmospheric rivers—this [B.C. mine] toxic waste will only become more difficult to manage and contain,” they wrote. 

“The conservation and restoration of our traditional lands and waters is crucial to maintaining our way of life and is an expression of our sovereignty,” said Tlingit & Haida President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson in Tlingit & Haida’s press release about the letter. “We will not stop until our concerns are addressed.”

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us

April 2023: Salmon Beyond Borders Joins Tribal and Conservation Leaders in Washington, D.C.

From left to right, Breanna Walker, Rep. Mary Peltola, and Heather Hardcastle.

Salmon Beyond Borders director Breanna Walker and advisor Heather Hardcastle joined several Tribal and conservation leaders from Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and B.C. in Washington, D.C. in late April for the bilateral meetings between the U.S. and Canada, including meetings of the International Joint Commission. We reminded members of Congress and U.S. and Canadian federal agency leaders of the resolutions passed in 2021-2022 by over 15 Southeast Alaska Tribes and municipalities, calling for: (1) an immediate, temporary pause on permits for new B.C. mines until binding watershed protections developed by communities and Indigenous and federal governments are in place; (2) a permanent ban on earthen mine waste (“tailings”) dams.  

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us 

March 2023: Biden and Trudeau Make a Joint Statement Re: Transboundary Mining

Stikine River. Photo by Colin Arisman

At the end of March, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a joint announcement pertaining to transboundary British Columbia mining for the first time in decades! Their joint statement about mining contamination in the transboundary B.C.-Montana Elk-Kootenai watershed says that “Canada and the United States intend to reach an agreement in principle by this summer to reduce and mitigate the impacts of water pollution…in partnership with Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples, and in order to protect the people and species that depend on this vital river system.” 

Salmon Beyond Borders applauds this important announcement — and we support Tribal and community leaders in all four states downstream of B.C., as well as First Nations, thousands of individual Alaskans, and Southeast municipalities, in making clear that the agreement sought is a reference to the International Joint Commission, which prevents and resolves disputes under the U.S.-Canada Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. If Canada continues to “drag its heels,” as the Canadian Press phrased it, the U.S. could initiate International Joint Commission oversight in the shared Elk-Kootenai on its own (unilaterally). The U.S. could also take this same action  in the Alaska-B.C. transboundary region, to ensure B.C. mining contamination of Alaska rivers never reaches the severity it already has for Montana and Idaho.

You can read additional coverage of President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement in the B.C. publication The Narwhal. 

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us

March 2023: Tlingit & Haida, Seaslaska, Alaska State Legislators, and SBB Hold Joint Press Conference

President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson of Tlingit & Haida, left, and Sealaska Board Chairman Joe Nelson, right, speak at a joint press conference with Alaska legislators and Salmon Beyond Borders.

In early March, B.C. mining and environment ministries officials  visited Juneau to speak with Tribes and community members about transboundary mining concerns for the first time in eight years. At the same time, the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Sealaska, members of the Alaska State Legislature, and Salmon Beyond Borders held a joint press conference urging immediate federal action on B.C.’s continued industrialization of the headwaters of the T’aakū (Taku), Shtax’héen (Stikine) and Jóonax (Unuk) Rivers without the consent, or sometimes even the knowledge, of Tribes, Native corporations, fishermen, and communities downstream. 

Salmon Beyond Borders was honored to be a part of the press conference. Also at the event, Representative Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan; Sara Hannan, D-Juneau; and Rebecca Himschoot, Nonpartisan-Sitka, announced that they, along with Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, and Senator Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the Biden Administration to take swift action, in line with Tribes’ and municipalities’ requests.

“This should be simple. Whatever your political leanings, whether you’re pro-industry or against industry, you should want clean water, you should want systems that support healthy habitat, healthy and strong returns of salmon, that will rear and spawn for generations to come. That’s the bottom line,” said President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson, of the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, as quoted in this great piece from Sage Smiley of KSTK radio.

“It’s time that we actually see some progress being made in terms of putting forward some real protections out there, so that our way of life can continue to exist long into the future for our children, for our grandchildren,” said Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan.

Here is the Juneau Empire’s story of the press conference, Toxic mining talks linger between Alaska, Canada: Native and legislative leaders reiterate call for U.S. intervention after Canadian officials’ visit. 

You can read the legislators’ letter to Secretary Blinken here. You can read Tlingit & Haida’s, Sealaska’s, and Salmon Beyond Borders’ full press release, issued just after the press conference, here. You can watch the full press conference here.

On Sunday, March 4, shortly before the meetings with B.C. officials began, Salmon Beyond Borders also published an opinion piece in the Juneau Empire, which has a cameo in the Empire’s news story.

In the months to come, we and our partners will continue to amplify these calls for federal action. If you haven’t already, please: 

Defend the Rivers that Feed Us

February 2023: Another B.C. Gold Mine and Tailings Dams are Proposed for the Unuk River

Unuk River Watershed. Photo by Chris Miller

At the end of February, Canada granted B.C.’s request for Eskay Creek to undergo a “substituted” provincial Environmental Assessment (EA) process, instead of a provincial EA and a full Canadian federal Impact Assessment, despite the fact that this mine is located about 50 miles from the international border on the transboundary Unuk River. Barrick Gold operated the Eskay Creek gold mine in the upper Unuk watershed as an underground mine from 1994-2008, but the mine’s new owner, Skeena Resources, now proposes to “revitalize” this gold mine to include open pits and tailings dams. This mine is located on Tahltan lands and the Province of B.C. and the Tahltan Central Government signed a consent-based agreement for Eskay Creek, the first of its kind between B.C. and a First Nation for a mine EA process. Geophysicist Steve Emerman, Ph.D. lists an Eskay Creek tailings dam as a dam of concern in a recent report focused on risky B.C. tailings dams. A comment period for the “planning phase” of the B.C. EA process for the Eskay Creek gold mine closed on Feb. 16, 2023, and SBB submitted comments. We will keep you updated on upcoming opportunities to speak out about this gold mine.

May 2022: New Website and New Director for Salmon Beyond Borders

In news about ourselves: SBB has a new website, and we are excited about it! The whole team has worked hard on this over the last year, but special thanks go to Ryan Astalos, our secret weapon and jack-of-all-trades, who taught himself website design and who made this happen. Check it out: www.salmonbeyondborders.org 

Also, when we sent our last email, Jill Weitz was at the helm of Salmon Beyond Borders, as she had been for four years. In May 2022, Jill moved over to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to continue to work on the transboundary issue and other issues at the Tribe, and I (Breanna Walker) moved into the role of Salmon Beyond Borders director. It has been a full year!