There is a growing water pollution crisis coming from British Columbia’s Elk Valley that threatens to spill into a transborder political dispute between Canada and the U.S. Canada must work quickly to strengthen regulations to protect water quality and aquatic life – in line with steps taken by U.S. counterparts. Global Affairs Canada needs to refer the water pollution crisis officially to the International Joint Commission and consider the first-ever Indigenous-led transboundary watershed board.
The Elk Valley is in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, close to the Alberta and Montana borders. While it hosts stunning views of rugged mountains and scenic rivers, it is also home to 80 per cent of Canada’s annual metallurgical coal exports through the four-open pit metallurgical coal mines, operated by Teck Resources Limited. Metallurgical coal is used to make steel.
Mines in the Elk Valley use a technique almost indistinguishable from mountain-top removal mining used in the Appalachians. These techniques involve blasting away rock on the top of mountains and dumping it into waste rock piles, before finally reaching the coal. The process not only devastates the surrounding landscape, contaminants like selenium leach from the waste rock, contaminating downstream rivers and streams. High concentrations of selenium in water can impair reproduction and cause deformities in fish, threatening fish stocks and the people who rely on them.
Water quality measurements in the Elk Valley have put selenium levels at 16.3 ug/L (micrograms per litre) in parts of the Elk River, exceeding the B.C. government’s own water quality limits for drinking water and the protection of aquatic life.
It is not just local waterways that are affected. Streams and rivers carry selenium to Lake Koocanusa on the U.S. border. From there, the water flows in the Kootenay River, through Montana and Idaho, before re-entering Canada at the town of Creston.
The cross-border flow of selenium-contaminated water may violate the Boundary Waters Treaty, signed in 1909 by Canada and the U.S. It commits both countries to ensure that boundary waters and waters flowing across the border are not polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.
Montana and Idaho have passed regulations limiting selenium in Lake Koocanusa to 0.8 ug/L, with concentrations continuing to reach record highs.
While the Canadian government has been drafting the proposed Coal Mining Effluent Regulations (CMER) since 2017 to control selenium and other pollutants discharged from coal mines, the proposed regulations would fall well short of protecting the environment in the Elk Valley. The levels proposed are higher than currently allowed under the Fisheries Act and B.C.’s guidelines for drinking water sources.
The pollution crisis has led to calls for stronger action in both Canada and the U.S., including from the Ktunaxa Nation in B.C., who have long led efforts to protect water and aquatic life on both sides of the border. For more than a decade, the Ktunaxa Nation Council and its related tribes in the U.S. have tried to get the Canadian and U.S. governments to refer the issue to the International Joint Commission (IJC).
The IJC is a binational organization set up under the Boundary Waters Treaty to investigate issues related to shared waterways. It can research the problems, set standards, and make recommendations essential to solving complicated issues. Historically, however, the IJC cannot take action without a referral from both U.S. and Canadian governments.
While the two countries have discussed the situation for years, Canada has so far not committed to making the referral.
The Ktunaxa Nation Council said Canada’s failure to do so flies in the face of the government’s commitment to meaningfully engage with Indigenous Peoples and the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
The urgency of the issue even prompted the IJC to draft a letter to both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden in May, expressing its concerns that pollution was getting worse with no “significant binational cooperation.” On June 8th, the Biden-Harris Administration made a statement supporting calls for a joint IJC reference.
The federal government needs to act now to address this issue. It must strengthen the CMER regulations to better protect water quality and aquatic life in the Elk Valley. It must also refer the matter to the IJC. Doing so would not only demonstrate Canada’s commitment to solving the transboundary water pollution crisis, but it would also highlight the government’s willingness to meaningfully implement UNDRIP.
Photo courtesy of Garth Lenz (ILCP) – A glimpse into Teck Coal Limited’s coal mining operations in the heart of the Elk Valley
