Canada Sees ‘Opportunity’ in These Mines. Alaskans See a Threat.

By Amanda Coletta / The Washington Post

16:37 JST, November 10, 2024

METLAKATLA, Alaska – In rugged northwestern British Columbia, Canada sees “a generational opportunity.” The region holds an estimated $1 trillion in gold and minerals critical to building clean energy technologies as Ottawa and Washington fret about China’s dominance in the sector.

Neighbors in Alaska see an existential threat.

Several working or planned mines are near rivers that run across the border into Alaska. Those that have been tested in recent years have met U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Alaska water-quality standards. But Indigenous people, environmentalists and lawmakers here, recalling a history of contamination and calamity, fear that the mines of B.C.’s Golden Triangle could bring new pollution.

Native groups, whose ancestral lands span both sides of the Alaskan and B.C. border, worry that pollutants from the mines could imperil ways of life that have sustained their people for generations. Several tribes in Alaska are asking Ottawa to recognize them as Aboriginal peoples of Canada. The status would give them more say over mining on the other side of a line drawn across their ancestral lands by a colonial power.

“Mines are going up on the river that flows into where they’re fishing now, that’s so tied into their cultural practices, their traditions, their subsistence, their well-being,” said Ramin Pejan, a lawyer representing the tribes. “They need to … consult and be involved in assessing the harms and designing mitigation measures.”

“If there is a [mining] disaster, it could be devastating to our salmon,” said Clinton Cook. Sr.‚ president of the Craig Tribal Association. “Salmon has been a way of life for all of southeast Alaska since we’ve been here. … Our way of life and the protection of what we need to survive on – we take it very seriously.”

Their concerns have long been echoed by lawmakers and environmentalists, who fear the mining threatens the fishing and tourism industries – the backbone of southeastern Alaska’s economy.

Canada has been pitching itself to the United States as a friendly, reliable source of critical minerals to counter China, which controls the supply chains for minerals needed to power the green energy transition. China is the world’s top producer of graphite and refines more than half of the world’s lithium, key components of electric vehicle batteries.

Canada is home to 31 critical minerals, and its reserves of cobalt and nickel rank in the top 10 globally, but industry groups warn that if it doesn’t expand exploration, reduce red tape and draw investment, it will lose the race. The United States has been eager to partner with its close ally; its military has pumped millions of dollars into Canadian mines under the Defense Production Act.

But in August, Alaska’s congressional delegation wrote a bipartisan letter to President Joe Biden calling for an “international framework” to resolve disputes in shared waters and assurances that any communities harmed by B.C. mines would be compensated.

“We realize that … critical minerals that come from Canadian mines are a key part of U.S. and allied national security and an important part of resource development,” Sens. Dan Sullivan (R) and Lisa Murkowski (R) and Rep. Mary Peltola (D) wrote. “However, there is no need to sacrifice environmental protections in order to safeguard our security and power our communities.”

Michael Goehring, president of the Mining Association of British Columbia, said creating such a framework would be costly and unnecessary. There’s already a bilateral working group of Alaska and B.C. officials to resolve disputes, he said, and B.C. mines are governed by “world-leading laws and regulations.”

“We understand that Alaskans and Alaskan tribes want certainty that mining is done responsibly in the transboundary area,” Goehring told The Washington Post. “But it’s important to understand that we mine responsibly in British Columbia.”

Indigenous groups aren’t convinced. They fear their traditions are at risk of dying out.

When Lee Wagner was a girl, her family plied the Unuk River for eulachon, a smelt whose return signaled the arrival of spring. People here call it the “savior fish”: It turned up when food stocks were low after a punishing winter.

At home in Metlakatla, a town of 1,450 that’s accessible only by seaplane or boat, the eulachon would be smoked, for food, or rendered into the fatty condiment called grease, traded by Indigenous groups on both sides of the border.

“All the kids would be like, ‘Lee’s house stinks so bad,’” said Wagner, 46. “But those are the traditions that I was able to thankfully partake in.”

Now she worries those traditions are at risk. The cross-border Unuk River no longer brims with eulachon. It suffered a population collapse in 2005.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says the cause of the collapse is unclear – “little information exists on eulachon in general” – but says potential overharvest is the main threat to the resource.

Jon Hyde, chief of fish, wildlife, watershed and botany for the U.S. Forest Service’s Ketchikan Misty Fjords Ranger District, said that the scientific literature suggests that “prolonged poor ocean conditions” played a large part in the collapse but that factors such as ocean temperature, overfishing and commercial bycatch can also contribute to declines in fish populations.

While the fish has been returning to the Unuk in recent years, the population is below what it was. Wagner fears mining across the border could send pollutants downstream and doom the finicky fish for good.

“The fact that it’s being threatened again,” she said, “is very alarming.”

“I don’t speak our language because that was assimilated out,” Wagner said. “I don’t know Native song or dance. What my culture was was harvesting, and that is slowly dying, as well.”

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‘These rivers are our lifeline’

A history of mining pollution can make industry assurances ring hollow here.

In the 1950s, B.C.’s Tulsequah Chief Mine began polluting a tributary to the salmon-rich Taku River in Alaska’s southeast with sulfuric acid and heavy metals. Decades later, the mine is still leaking; the pace of the cleanup, glacial.

At a meeting of the bilateral working group in January, Alaskan officials “strongly” urged “meaningful” progress on reclaiming the site, according to a summary, but the Canadian firm in charge of the cleanup said it didn’t yet have the “detailed technical information” needed for a final plan.

In 2014, the failure of the Mount Polley tailings dam, an embankment to store mining waste, spewed 25 billion liters of water and contaminants such as lead, arsenic and mercury into a B.C. watershed. The failure remains the largest mining-waste disaster in Canadian history.

For Heather Hardcastle, it’s an illustration of how wrong mining can go.

Hardcastle was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, near the mouth of the Taku River, where her family has run a salmon-fishing business for generations.

“These rivers are our lifeline,” said Hardcastle, an adviser with the environmental advocacy group Salmon Beyond Borders.

In a 2020 letter in the journal Science, scientists argued that “shortfalls in mine assessments and permitting policies” in Canada threaten border-crossing waters. Mines such as Seabridge Gold’s planned Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell project in the Golden Triangle, they said, “pose long-term risks to downstream water quality, fish and people.”

Mine advocates note that the working group in 2021 reported “no exceedances of Alaska water quality standards” in the Taku, Stikine and Unuk watersheds downstream of the U.S.-Canada border over two years of water sampling.

But the group found concentrations of copper, cadmium, selenium and zinc on the B.C. side, in some cases “at sites downstream relative to operating or historic mines,” that exceeded provincial guidelines. Sediment samples from sites in both Alaska and B.C. had concentrations of elements above provincial and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration guidelines for aquatic life.

More recent tests of water quality and fish tissue by the U.S. Geological Survey turned up no results that exceed thresholds set by the EPA, said Jeff Conaway, an associate director at the agency’s Alaska Science Center.

Many here want assurances that if that changes, their communities will be compensated.

“Mount Polley is small in comparison to the mines that are now operating or projected to,” said Will Micklin, vice president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. “The threat of toxic waste that would change our way of life … is significant to us.”

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‘A made-up line’

On a recent afternoon, Lee Wagner’s father, Louie Wagner, sailed several generations of his family around the harbor in Metlakatla, home to Alaska’s only Native reservation.

On board the Melodee Dawn, Tazia Wagner, Lee Wagner’s 29-year-old daughter, snacked on homemade smoked sockeye salmon and spoke of the “amazing” time in the spring when, for the first time, the eulachon run was moderate enough that she was able to join her family and harvest it.

“I loved every moment of it,” she said.

Metlakatla was founded in the 19th century by Tsimshian people from the village of Metlakatla in British Columbia who followed a Scottish missionary here. Even today, some Indigenous people here – including Lee Wagner’s mother, Cindy Wagner, the “grease lady” – hold “Indian status” in Canada.

The border “is a made-up line,” Tazia Wagner said. “It’s imaginary.”

That argument has been key to efforts of tribes of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission to be recognized as “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” under the country’s constitution and “participating Indigenous nations” under B.C.’s environmental assessment law.

The tribes cite a 2021 Supreme Court of Canada decision that found that Indigenous people outside Canada could have constitutional rights granted to Indigenous people in Canada if they belong to groups that are modern-day successors of those that occupied territory there at the time of European contact.

Canada’s constitution requires the Crown to consult with Aboriginal peoples of Canada on projects that might affect their territories. B.C.’s environmental regulators must work with “participating Indigenous nations” on seeking consensus around projects.

The tribes cite testimony from elders, oral histories and archival materials to argue that they’re the modern-day successors to the Tèiḵwèidi Tlingit Clan of the Sàanyàa Ḵwáan who occupied the Unuk watershed when Europeans arrived in the 1700s.

“Indigenous people’s territory doesn’t see those borders,” said Pejan, their lawyer. “The river doesn’t see those borders. The effects of those projects are going to harm and threaten those tribes, and so they need to have a seat at the table.”

B.C. officials denied their request in June. In a letter to an official with the province’s environmental assessment office, provincial officials said they “understand that a federal policy for consultation with Indigenous groups outside of Canada will be developed.”

B.C.’s environment ministry declined to respond to questions from The Post. It said communications during a provincial election period are “limited to critical health and public safety information” and it cannot comment on matters before the courts.

The federal government has not yet made a determination on the tribes’ status.

Industry has bristled at these efforts. Officials argue that B.C.’s environmental assessment process already allows outside parties to submit comments. Several firms contacted by The Post said they had reached out to the tribal commission and not heard back.

Brent Murphy, senior vice president for environmental affairs at Seabridge Gold, said that feedback from Alaskan tribes, regulators and communities led it to make changes to the KSM project’s water-management strategy – adjustments that increased the project’s cost by more than $300 million.

Mining firms note that the Tahltan First Nation in northwestern British Columbia backs many of the projects in the Golden Triangle. The group did not respond to a request for comment.

“It’s understandable that groups outside of Canada would want to do what they could in order to make sure that they could protect their cultures and their livelihoods,” said Chad Norman Day, a former president of the Tahltan central government, who said he was speaking for himself. “I don’t agree that they can take it so far as to get official consultation and accommodation from Canadian governments.”

Pejan said the tribes are considering next steps.

Louie Wagner, 76, was taught to fish at 9 by an older brother, and it’s been a part of cherished family memories since. At home in Metlakatla, over salmon spread sandwiches, Cindy, 73, recalled his marriage proposal.

“I said, ‘No,’” she said, “’not unless you take me fishing.’ … And he said, ‘I was afraid to ask you if you want to go fishing with me.’”

The Wagners worry about the future of waterways that have sustained their family and others for hundreds of years.

“What I want is that the river is still there for my children and their children,” Louie Wagner said. “Everything that was endangered is disappearing and never coming back. It’s just pictures in a picture book – like dinosaurs.”