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 >>>