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00:00:30.740Hello, and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today I'm speaking with Chris Simmer.
00:00:38.560So we have an ocean that's turning hostile. On the other hand, climate change really does not seem to have affected the nature of the Taku yet.
00:00:45.780The Taku has a lot of ice in its upper ends. It's got a lot of cold water inputs up high in the river.
00:00:53.160So from one perspective, you could look at the Taku as kind of a refuge for fish,
00:00:58.540given the changes we're seeing in the ocean and the changes we're seeing due to climate change.
00:01:03.880Chris Zimmer is the Alaska Campaign Director for Rivers Without Borders, based in Juneau.
00:01:09.820Chris has been with Rivers Without Borders since 2001.
00:01:13.540He has worked on environmental issues for over 30 years in Washington, D.C.,
00:01:18.300Washington State, Montana, and Alaska, including nuclear weapons testing, Columbia River dams and
00:01:25.040salmon, forest campaigns, and trans-border mining issues. Chris enjoys fishing and hunting in the
00:01:31.840watersheds he helps to protect. Well, Chris, thank you so much for joining us. What we're about to
00:01:40.100speak to is by far one of my favorite topics, so I'm really looking forward to diving in.
00:01:46.420Oh, thanks for having us here. And yeah, talking about rivers and fish, two of my favorite topics as well.
00:01:54.380Well, I'd like to begin our conversation with an introduction to place. And the Taku Watershed is considered to be the largest intact wilderness river system on the Pacific coast of North America.
00:02:09.320For listeners joining us from afar, I'm wondering if you can describe this watershed and the many inhabitants that are dependent upon it.
00:02:19.960Boy, the Taku is an amazing watershed. It's just a world-class river system. Its headwaters are up in northwest British Columbia.
00:02:28.600The closest town would probably be Atlin, which is a very small town in northwest BC.
00:02:33.860And then the river flows down across the border, and then it reaches the ocean about eight miles south of Juneau.
00:02:42.200You can almost see the mouth of the river from downtown Juneau.
00:08:14.440Yeah. Now, before we delve into a conversation on mining threats, I wonder if you can clarify what transboundary rivers mean in relationship to international advocacy, pollution, and responsibility, as well as the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, particularly thinking about the Taku, Stikine, and Eunuch.
00:08:39.980Does consent exist when it comes to the downstream ramifications of mines that are developed in BC?
00:08:46.920And what are the limitations of the 1909 treaty?
00:08:50.960Boy, that's an excellent set of questions there.
00:08:53.460One of the things that really makes these transboundary watersheds unique from a management perspective is the fact that they start in one country and they end up in another country.
00:09:02.320The stakine, the eunuch, the taku all have their headwaters up in British Columbia, and then they flow across the border through Alaska to the sea.
00:09:11.460So you have a provincial and a state government.
00:09:19.460And then you have the tribal and First Nations governments.
00:09:21.700So you have kind of a complex picture there of the different entities that are in charge of regulating different aspects of the rivers.
00:09:32.320So it's not just one or two governments here. It's pretty complex.
00:09:36.600The Boundary Waters Treaty is one of the few things we have to try to hold British Columbia accountable.
00:09:43.520Most of the spawning areas in these rivers are on the British Columbia side.
00:09:46.860So we are dependent on them to maintain that habitat.
00:09:50.560Whereas once those juvenile salmon are born, they tend to come down and rear or grow up on the Alaska side.
00:09:58.520And in general, the Alaska habitat is very good.
00:10:00.520The Eunuch River, it flows through Misty Fjords National Monument.
00:10:04.780The Stikine on the U.S. side is in a wilderness area, and the Taku is essentially pristine.
00:10:12.280So on the Alaska side, these habitats are in great shape.
00:10:15.100But on the other hand, we have B.C. moving forward with a very aggressive mining agenda in the headwaters.
00:10:21.900And mining and salmon essentially are a combination that really has never worked together.
00:10:27.800So the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 was signed by Canada and the US. And that says neither country can pollute the waters flowing between the two countries in a way that would negatively affect that country. So the simple version is, it says you can't pollute a transboundary river that would affect your neighbor. It's kind of a good neighbor agreement. But it's up to the level of enforcement and political will on each side of the border.
00:10:53.040The biggest problem with the Boundary Waters Treaty, though, is to both sides really have to agree on taking strong measures there.
00:10:59.620And the main mechanism would be to create an international joint commission made up of Canadians and Americans that would investigate a particular issue, whether it's a mine, whether it's water use, whether it's a dam.
00:11:12.880The problem is both sides have to agree.
00:11:15.420And we have a lot of groups and individuals on the Alaska side saying we need an international joint commission to address issues in the transboundary.
00:11:21.820bc and canada have said no so it doesn't go anywhere um that's the biggest flaw there is
00:11:28.900you have to have agreement from both sides um when you look at the way bc regulates and does
00:11:35.180its mining they do i think consult is too heavy of a word but they do they have talked to alaskans
00:11:42.280they've talked to the tribes but you know we don't really have much of a vote we certainly don't have
00:11:47.360a veto. And at the end of the day, BC can essentially do what it wants. And its regulatory
00:11:53.520regime is very weak. It doesn't have the proper bonding you need. Like in Alaska, when a mine is
00:11:58.720proposed and built, the company has to put a full bond in the bank to where if something bad happens,
00:12:04.380if they go bankrupt, that bond kicks in to pay for cleanup and mine reclamation.
00:12:10.600BC doesn't have that policy. And we're actually seeing that they have a massive underfunded
00:12:14.900liability of a couple billion dollars in mine cleanup costs that have not been paid for by
00:12:20.420bonding. And what that means is the taxpayer is probably going to have to pay for that,
00:12:24.780that the companies end up getting off the hook. So as a downstreamer here in Alaska,
00:12:29.960I think we've got a lot to worry about given how aggressive BC's plans are,
00:12:35.140the track record we've seen from the mining industry, things like the Mount Pauly tailings
00:12:40.320Dam disaster, the Tosca chief been polluting the Taku for 60 years, the lack of decent bonding,
00:12:48.660and there's no way to compensate Alaskans if BC ruins any of our fisheries. So there are a host0.99
00:12:54.140of things to worry about here in Alaska, and what we're pushing for is much stronger mechanisms,
00:12:58.520some kind of agreement between the US and Canada that addresses the BC mining exploration,
00:13:04.620addresses our need for fish here, creates compensation and other regulatory mechanisms,
00:13:09.480and that gives Alaskans a voice here in the development going on upstream of us because
00:13:16.180right now we're at what my one of my fishing friends called the dirty end of the river
00:13:19.520everything flows downstream if these rivers flowed the other direction you know I think we might be
00:13:25.460having a different conversation and seeing a different attitude from BC but everything that
00:13:29.680happens up in the BC side is going to end up on the Alaska side and could seriously impact our
00:13:34.040fish and fisheries and there just isn't a mechanism really to deal with that and the
00:13:39.040Boundary Waters Treaty is helpful, but it is certainly not enough. And it's difficult to
00:13:44.560trigger that treaty. Yeah. Well, I wanted to go back to British Columbia's abandoned
00:13:54.580Tolsco chief mine that's been polluting downstream watersheds for over 60 years,
00:14:01.140which is really an unfathomably long period of time. So can you share with us the history of
00:14:08.420this mine, particularly in terms of resources and ownership, and why it's been allowed to leach acid
00:14:14.960and heavy metals completely unchecked since its time of abandonment in 1957. Let me talk a little
00:14:22.520bit quickly about the acid mine drainage, which is really one of the biggest problems that we have
00:14:27.100with these mines, given their proximity to fish and fish habitat. A lot of these mines are mining
00:14:34.120what are called sulfide deposits and that's often where they find the gold and the silver and the
00:14:38.780copper and minerals like that. What happens when you dig up that deposit and expose the sulfide
00:14:44.220bearing ore to water and air is you get a reaction that forms sulfuric acid. That's bad enough for
00:14:53.040the fish and the water quality in the fish habitat but that sulfuric acid also leaches heavy metals
00:14:58.960out of the rock and eventually then flows into the river so you have toxic heavy metals like arsenic
00:15:05.240lead copper zinc in a highly acidic discharge that eventually gets into the into the into the
00:15:12.980rivers and if it's toxic enough it can kill fish outright but it also can have these very subtle
00:15:18.940insidious effects where it may not kill a fish outright but it will severely inhibit that fish's
00:15:24.920ability to find its home spawning grounds, to find mates, to find food, to avoid predators,
00:15:31.400eventually meaning that that fish will likely not spawn. So you don't get the next generation there.
00:15:36.860And a lot of these sulfide deposits that BC is looking at are right in the headwaters of these
00:15:41.480rivers. Some of them, like the Tulsa with Chief, are literally yards from the river itself.
00:15:47.340So this combination of sulfide deposits and acid mine drainage and salmon
00:15:51.500is a bad combination. It usually does not work out well for the fish. And here we have an example
00:15:58.260of that with a Tulsa chief where the mine was closed in the fifties, the company just walked
00:16:02.840away and left it there. Since then it's out of the mine shafts themselves is coming this polluted
00:16:10.100water, the highly acidic discharge with all the heavy metals. And it flows out of the mine down
00:16:15.860the hill and right into the river. This big orange stain, it really is quite obnoxious and
00:16:23.040kind of disturbing when you see it. It just looks so unnatural. One of the reasons why that happened
00:16:29.620in the 50s is there weren't really any decent mining laws back then, and the company really
00:16:34.300was able to walk away, and the province didn't do anything about it. But in the late 1990s,
00:16:39.920the company did buy the mine and try to develop it, and they went bankrupt.
00:16:43.060in 2010 another company came in and and tried to do it and they went bankrupt and they didn't do
00:16:49.700really anything about the acid mine drainage their position was we bought this mine we're
00:16:54.720going to develop it when we're done mining it we'll then clean it up and our response was
00:16:59.180you know the common sense response which is well my mom always told me you got to clean up one
00:17:03.920mess before you make another one so our push was all right if you're going to redevelop this mine
00:17:08.280you got to clean it up first. That never happened. You still have this orange poisonous water flowing
00:17:14.100right into the river. And BC over the last couple of years has taken some enforcement measures and
00:17:20.240is now moving to take responsibility for cleanup. But for a couple of decades, BC bought the company
00:17:25.620line, which is we're going to operate the mine and eventually we'll clean it up. Their enforcement
00:17:30.840was weak. They didn't put anybody in jail. They didn't find the company. They didn't find any of
00:17:34.840company directors, they essentially said, okay, we're going to give you a pass and allow you to
00:17:39.100pollute the river until you make enough money to stop the pollution, which is a pretty poor way of
00:17:45.400regulating the rivers. But now with two mining companies gone bankrupt, I think BC finally
00:17:51.000realized that this mine isn't viable economically, politically, socially, culturally. They're just a
00:17:57.060bad mine in the wrong place. And BC has now taken steps to take over the mine, take responsibility
00:18:03.120for cleanup and clean it up and close it down in a way to where that would forbid future development
00:18:09.560in the region. And we think that's great. We clean up this eyesore and then we create a regime here
00:18:16.020where it doesn't happen again, that the lower talk who watershed here is protected from that
00:18:21.420kind of mining. But the Tuscaloosa Chief was really the first mine like this, the first issue
00:18:25.880in the trans boundary about 20 years ago. But what it's become is become kind of the poster child0.83
00:18:32.080for BC mining. It created all the issues and concern we have in the other watersheds and about
00:18:36.820the other mines, because we don't want to see this same dynamic happen in other rivers that
00:18:43.680we're seeing now at the Tulsa Chief. The Tulsa Chief was really the warning. It was the shot
00:18:48.120across the bow. It was an educational experience. It showed Alaskans that we've really got to step
00:18:53.940up and deal with BC and their mining activities in the headwaters, or we're going to, very possible
00:19:00.340in the future here see problems for fish and water quality as BC moves ahead here. So the
00:19:06.180Tusca chief really is the poster child of what can go wrong here. Yeah. I think holding
00:19:13.860government and corporations accountable is such an important job and a job that takes a lot of
00:19:23.760energy and effort. And I'd like to just make sure that listeners fully understand what acidic
00:19:30.780runoff entails in terms of the ramifications it has on river inhabitants and the surrounding
00:19:36.780community. So I just want to know what are the physiological impacts of these heavy metals in
00:19:43.660terms of the immediate impact, as well as the cumulative effects since this has been going on
00:19:49.060for decades. So we have a couple really nasty heavy metals that kind of rise to the top for
00:19:55.440their worry. Copper is one of the big ones because copper in incredibly small quantities
00:20:01.900and in quantities well below water quality standards can have what we call these sublethal
00:20:09.020effects on fish, especially juvenile and young salmon, that the copper, unless its concentration
00:20:15.380and is extremely high, it doesn't kill the fish outright or quickly, but what it does is it can
00:20:20.900essentially impact that fish's system to where it is essentially just unhealthy, to where that
00:20:29.260fish will have trouble finding mates. It will interrupt the fish's homing instinct, which
00:20:34.140brings it back to its spawning grounds. So who knows where that fish will end up. It can impact
00:20:39.520its ability to find mates and escape predators. So essentially what it does is it may not kill
00:20:44.860that fish outright, but it'll make it much, much less likely that fish will grow to adulthood and
00:20:50.360spawn. So you won't have that fish contributing to the next generation. There's another metal
00:20:55.380called selenium, which is also in a lot of these deposits. The biggest issue, the biggest problem
00:21:00.700with selenium right now is there are a number of BC coal mines upstream of Montana in the elk
00:21:08.880flathead drainage. Those mines are pouring out tons of selenium into the BC side of the river,
00:21:15.900which is then flowing across the border into the Montana rivers. And they've documented very high
00:21:20.960levels of selenium. One of its main effects is it can lead to fish deformities. We've seen fish
00:21:26.540with two jaws, fish with bent spines, fish that are just look like some kind of frankenfish.
00:21:33.100They just don't develop naturally, normally, and again, they're very less likely to get back to their spawning areas.
00:21:42.460We're talking trout in these Montana rivers, not salmon and steelhead, but the Elk Valley and the Flathead Valley are amazing wilderness rivers.
00:21:54.220They have incredible fish populations, but right now they have very high selenium levels because these upstream coal mines,
00:22:00.520and BC continues to try to bend over backwards to work with the company and give them as much
00:22:06.400kind of wiggle room as they can instead of simply setting a standard of, okay,
00:22:11.760this level of selenium is bad. If you exceed this, you got to stop. But they haven't put a halt to
00:22:17.140the activities. The selenium is still pouring into the river. So again, you have a complex
00:22:21.840enforcement regime here that's not really working. Some of the other metals, whether it's arsenic or
00:22:27.980lead can also create problems with the fish. And again, it's these sublethal effects that can
00:22:34.220inhibit the fish's ability to spawn. And again, a lot of these metals levels are below water
00:22:39.900quality standards. So even under the existing law, the law says this level is okay, but the biology
00:22:47.140of the fish says it's not. It's very insidious at these levels because you don't see a lot of fish
00:22:53.060floating belly up, you don't see these big fish kills, what you'll see eventually is less spawning
00:22:58.160and drops in populations. But it's hard to monitor. It takes a lot of water quality testing
00:23:05.440and fish testing. And then it takes the political will to go out and enforce the laws based on this
00:23:11.500testing and reduce the metal loading. So acid mine drainage is an incredible problem for water
00:23:17.300quality for fish. It can impact the, you know, the bugs and the insects and the little critters
00:23:23.640that live on the bottom of the river that then feed the bigger critters. Once you get that amount
00:23:28.020of acid mine drainage into the systems, you can really start impacting the life at all levels
00:23:33.800here. And once it's happening, it's very difficult to stop and clean up as the Tosco chief is showing
00:27:01.460And we haven't seen a mine the scale of Pebble or KSM and the Eunuch be built and operated0.98
00:27:09.940yet, but we are pretty fearful that essentially we'd see there a Tulsaqua chief situation1.00
00:27:14.600that's vastly bigger, more expensive and more difficult to clean up. So the reclamation plan
00:27:21.760has this list of options of, okay, how are we going to try to stop water flowing in and out
00:27:27.200of the mine and stop this reaction? And given that you can't stop at 100%, what are we going to do
00:27:32.840with the existing polluted water that's still going to come out of the mine? There are water
00:27:37.960treatment technologies. You can treat the water, but they're expensive. They have to operate forever.
00:27:42.780you have to have staff come and maintain them and in a remote area like the taku that's that's
00:27:48.820difficult um the other strategy sometimes they look at is essentially dilution uh build a big
00:27:55.400holding pond by the side of the river the polluted water flows into that the pond eventually fills up
00:28:01.320and then starts flowing into the river so the pollution is still getting into the river but
00:28:06.580it's diluted and uh you know there's a host of reasons to be concerned about that because
00:28:12.360although it's diluted you know you're still getting the same amount of heavy metals and
00:28:16.500pollution into the river it's just mixed in with a lot more water um uh so the question is
00:28:22.420does that reduce the effects on water quality and fish and if so where a mile downstream 100 yards
00:28:29.140downstream um so it is likely that there is still going to be polluted water coming out of this mine
00:28:34.320essentially forever, but hopefully massively reduced amounts. So we're looking at a cleanup
00:28:39.380effort right now that will probably take five to 10 years at least, and then it's going to have to
00:28:43.540be monitored essentially forever to make sure it worked. Looking at a cost of 50 to 100 million
00:28:49.000dollars, and the bond that the two companies had when they were in existence before they went
00:28:55.280bankrupt was on the order of about a million and a half dollars. That's already been spent.
00:29:00.560So any further cleanup activities at Tulsa Chief are going to have to be paid either by the taxpayer, which is a bad precedent and calls into question BC's polluter pay principle, or you have to go back to the original owner, which was Tech Komenko, now known as Tech.
00:29:20.180They were the original owner, and so under BC law, they're still liable.
00:29:24.400But Tech is a massive company with incredible political power in BC.
00:29:28.160tech is actually the company that owns these big coal mines up above montana that's polluting the
00:29:33.620hell out of montana so tech is already a bit on the hot seat there but bc we're hoping to see that
00:29:39.960bc does go back to tech and say look you made this mess you walked away you got to clean it up
00:29:44.180rather than sticking the taxpayer for it because that's a bad precedent it's a bad model
00:29:49.360it lets the industry off the hook it tells them they don't have to follow these type of regulations
00:29:54.440it just sends a very poor message. Let's see. What else do you think? Oh, the urgency here.
00:29:59.580Yeah, the urgency. I mean, we've had 50, 60 years of pollution here. We have trouble with
00:30:04.080the Chinook in the watershed. Right now, we have a political moment where a lot of interests are
00:30:09.820aligned to clean up the mine. But if you get a new government in BC or political changes,
00:30:14.860that could change. I think we need to seize this moment right now and pretty much lock in the
00:30:20.120cleanup of the Tolska chief so that we're not subject to political changes and also just to
00:30:25.940stop the pollution flowing into the watershed. And this again is like the warning bell for us
00:30:34.100on all these other rivers and all these other mines of, boy, this is what we've seen in this
00:30:37.860relatively small mine. This is what we've seen with the regulatory regime. This is what we've
00:30:42.800seen happening on the river. All this makes us nervous. And we want to essentially make sure
00:30:47.020the mechanisms are in place so this doesn't happen again if we get a mine the size you know the scale
00:30:52.960of pebble or something much bigger than tulsa chief i mean the the cleanups could go up into
00:30:58.940the hundreds of millions or billions you could have a you know vastly more pollution flowing
00:31:04.160into the rivers and you might have um you know issues at a scale that are hard to deal with like
00:31:09.100the the mount poly mine what it showed was the fact that you know these tailings dams are eventually
00:31:15.020going to fail or leak. They're made by humans. We're failable. We're not perfect. And this idea
00:31:21.340of putting a huge amount of water behind those tailings dams just creates this ticking time bomb.
00:31:27.440And eventually when those dams fail, the water drives all the tailings out of the site, downstream
00:31:33.060into the rivers. And if you didn't have all that water behind the dam, you would essentially just
00:31:37.800have more of a big landslide instead of something that can travel miles and miles. So one of the
00:31:42.620issues we have with BC is their technology. Using these big tailings dams with millions of gallons
00:31:48.300of water behind them is essentially a ticking time bomb. It passes off the risk to future
00:31:53.000generations. And it means that somebody who knows who and who's going to pay for this
00:31:58.760has to monitor those tailings dams forever because they're going to sit there forever.
00:32:04.840And they are this ticking time bomb. After 50 or 100 years, the company that built the mine is
00:32:09.560gone. They're not around. So who's going to monitor these mines in the long term? Who's
00:32:13.740going to clean them up? You know, we're really passing the buck to future generations on that
00:32:17.980one. Yeah, it's just so intense, but important to hear how destructive these mining projects are.
00:32:29.920And just hearing about BC and the money allocated for reclamation. And yeah, I was
00:32:38.640reading that in 2018, it was reported that the province is over a billion dollars short when it
00:32:44.160comes to their estimated total cleanup liability. And yeah, just knowing that the Tulskochut chief0.98
00:32:50.760mine, that it will cost nearly a million dollars a year in maintenance for perpetuity. So these pay
00:32:56.980issues is really just really incredible in a horrible way to hear about how disorganized
00:33:08.660the cleanup is when it comes to the folks in power, because ultimately they don't want to
00:33:14.460take responsibility. They don't really want to deal with their mess. And yeah, so goodness gracious.
00:33:22.380but I did want to also speak to the Trump administration, and I know that they pushed
00:33:27.140for decentralizing environmental policy. And with a new administration office that is looking to
00:33:34.020adjust policy, I'm curious to hear you talk about whether or not you think federal involvement is
00:33:40.020needed in this issue. What does this sort of work look like between allies in the so-called United
00:33:46.120States and Canada. And perhaps how does thinking about these issues in terms of domain,
00:33:52.680jurisdiction, and federal responsibility hinder or impact those who are coming to this issue with a
00:33:59.980deep reverence and love for these places and the kin that they nourish? Well, at your first issue,
00:34:05.880federal involvement is absolutely necessary here. We've been pushing for that for years and years,
00:34:11.180and that push is growing stronger. You can't just leave this to the state of Alaska and the
00:34:16.500province of BC. The issue is too big. It's beyond the resources of the state and the province.
00:34:21.980There are federal laws and treaties such as the Boundary Waters Treaty that come into play
00:34:27.080that the federal government is responsible for. If it was up to BC, I think they would just like
00:34:31.920to have a nice cozy relationship with Alaska and promote each other's mining activities and not
00:34:37.820get into the really nitty-gritty of the bad side here. So we've been demanding federal involvement
00:34:43.460to bring in the Boundary Waters Treaty, to bring in more money and resources, to bring in more
00:34:48.740expertise. You know, the EPA has a lot of expertise in cleaning up acid mine drainage sites.
00:34:55.240The U.S. federal government has a lot more money than Alaska. With the new administration here,
00:34:59.220they are reaching out to tribes and some of the environmental groups to ask, you know,
00:35:03.140what are the big issues? What do we need to do? What do we need to change? You know, unfortunately,
00:35:07.620this is in BC. So we are asking a foreign government to do something where we really
00:35:13.140right now do not have the ability to force them to do that. There's not a lawsuit or a law to
00:35:17.800trigger that we could order BC around. They're a sovereign government. So a lot of this is
00:35:23.500negotiating with BC, trying to bring the tribes and the First Nations to the table, giving that
00:35:28.340they're sovereign governments, and make the clear case that this is not just a provincial issue.
00:35:34.200um you know these trans-rounder salmon are sold all over the country all over the world in some
00:35:39.800cases you have a number of different governments that have to be active here so we definitely need
00:35:44.780the feds involved here because the province and the the state clearly can't handle the scope of
00:35:49.940the issues which also you know gets at the jurisdiction here we don't have jurisdiction
00:35:54.400over bc and it's going to be a long involved process to change the way bc um regulates its
00:36:01.720mining. And one of the really only ways to do that is just expand the issue, bring in the broader
00:36:06.760governments, bring in the downstream stakeholders. As I think I said before, us in Alaska, we're
00:36:12.700downstream. We get no benefit from the BC mines, but we bear all the risk. And there's really not
00:36:18.740much recognition of that or any mechanism in place or in the works to try to fix that.
00:36:24.880And we need the state of Alaska, but we also need the US federal government to stand up and say,
00:36:28.700these BC mining activities in the transboundary certainly have the potential to impact Alaskan
00:36:35.140and U.S. waters. Those potentially impacted Alaskans need a seat at the table. And right
00:36:40.220now we don't really have a seat at the table. You know, the mining industry or company may call us
00:36:43.720up and say, hey, we're going to do this mine or this is our plan. What do you think? What are
00:36:47.440your concerns? You know, and then essentially they take all those concerns and kind of round file
00:36:52.040them. You know, we haven't seen those concerns really dealt with. You know, I think the mining
00:36:56.080industry over there is just checking off a box that yeah we talked to the Alaskans we collected
00:37:01.700all their concerns and just trust us we'll deal with it everything will be fine in the long run
00:37:06.280and just trust us is not a not a concept we're going to go with here you have to have something
00:37:12.700that really holds their BC's feet to the fire with some credibility here and create some certainty as
00:37:19.120well so people like me and the mining industry both know what to expect and what's expected
00:37:24.440of them. So we're looking at bringing the feds in for that, but we also need a host of changes
00:37:30.620within BC. We talked a little about their lack of bonding, the fact that money usually isn't
00:37:36.180there for cleanup, the issue that they still rely on these tailings dams that have millions of
00:37:41.340gallons of water behind them and are a ticking time bomb. There's still just in general a lax
00:37:46.540reinforcement regime. There's no mechanism to compensate Alaskans if our interests are
00:37:54.240you know degraded or impacted by upstream activities so there's a host of regulatory
00:37:59.640things that really need to happen here and it's beyond the state and the province here you know
00:38:05.960especially just given the scale of this region you know we're talking massive watersheds massive
00:38:10.560rivers very remote hard to get to and it's just expensive to operate in these areas so
00:38:16.320we we need really an overhaul of the way bc does mining we need an alaskan seat at the table
00:38:22.980And we need the U.S. federal government to stand up and say this is a national issue. This isn't just a state provincial issue. Protecting these Alaskan fisheries is essentially in the national interest of the country.
00:38:34.820mm-hmm yeah i'm just so grateful to you and folks like you who are as you say holding
00:38:44.220the governments and corporations feet to the fire i think that that is so necessary and
00:38:52.440just to be so engaged involved um so obviously so much research and experience
00:39:00.540has gone into understanding the complexities that you are dealing with on a daily basis.
00:39:06.900So I just am feeling a lot of gratitude. And I understand that the second issue the
00:39:13.540Taku is facing is a new proposed mine that would also be called the Tolska chief, which
00:39:20.100after what we've been talking about feels truly absurd when we're only now beginning to see an
00:39:26.580effort towards cleaning the original mine up. So why is this being proposed as a solution and
00:39:33.740what is the feasibility that this mine opens again? There's the Tulsa Chief itself, which
00:39:38.780was operated and abandoned in the 1950s. There were the two companies late in the 90s and back
00:39:45.660in 2010 that bought the mine and tried to redevelop it under the kind of philosophy of,
00:39:50.720we'll redevelop it, we'll make some money, we'll build a mine, and then we'll clean it up and
00:39:54.140everybody will be happy. The bubble burst on that a while ago. So there does not, although it's still
00:40:01.480theoretically possible a new company could come in and buy the Talsquid Chief and redevelop it,
00:40:06.140that window is really only open for the next year because of the way the bankruptcy process went.
00:40:11.600A bankruptcy court ruled that Chieftain Metals, the current owner, can try to find a new buyer
00:40:17.060between now and next August, August 2022. But if they don't find a new buyer, then
00:40:22.440the mine goes away it's bc's responsibility we clean it up so we kind of have this year window
00:40:27.460right now where theoretically a new company could come in and buy it but bc opposes that alaska does
00:40:34.780this the tucker river cling it we do the mine is really a not economical it's got a host of
00:40:42.420liabilities so we don't see that the talska chief is really likely to be redeveloped i think bc is
00:40:48.720on the path to clean it up and close it down. There is, though, another old mine right across
00:40:55.440the river and downstream from Tulsa Chief. You can see the two mines from the properties called
00:41:01.800New Polaris. And that was operated as well back in the 50s and then closed down. But there's now
00:41:07.480a new company wanting to explore and reopen that. And you got to ask the common sense question of
00:41:13.740we have had decades of controversy and pollution from the Tulskwood chief.1.00
00:41:18.220We are now finally moving to clean that up,0.54
00:41:21.340which will take years and tens of millions of dollars.
00:41:24.620Why the hell would we be talking about and permitting a similar mine within
00:41:30.160sight of the Tulskwood chief? I mean, it, from a logic perspective,
00:41:37.340if we're really looking at trying to eliminate the effects of mining in the
00:41:40.200Tulskwood Valley, if you get rid of the Tulskwood chief,
00:41:42.820but then allow new Polaris to rise up, all you've done is traded one problem for the other.
00:41:50.080So the new Polaris project makes us very nervous because it could essentially bring back all the problems from Tosco Chief
00:41:57.260that we're starting to address, and yet we can't get any response from the British Columbia government about new Polaris.
00:42:06.080We asked them, well, given this problem, why would you allow another problem here?
00:42:09.880And really, it's a difficult question for them.
00:42:12.080They probably don't want to address it. It'd be good to keep the Tulsa chief cleanup simple when it's on its own. But you have this huge complicating factor of another proposed mine right across the river. And it also points out a lack of long term vision. Really, what is BC's long term vision for the Tulsa Valley and the lower Taku watershed?
00:42:32.500You know, the Tulsaquah River is the largest tributary to the Taku, and the mines we're talking about are on the Tulsaquah several miles upstream from where the Tulsaquah meets the Taku River, and then a couple dozen miles upstream of the international border.
00:42:50.620So when you look at this, you know, this is right in Juneau's backyard, and it's been a huge controversy here for a couple decades.
00:42:56.740And again, we've got to keep raising this common sense and question of what is the long-term vision? We can't keep looking at development piecemeal of, okay, we have a mine, we look at it, we spend 10 years, you know, reviewing it, then the next project comes along and the next one.
00:43:10.240What we really need is a long-term vision for the lower Taku that recognizes its values, recognizes the threats from mining, and essentially creates a regime where mining and mineral staking is not allowed in that region so we can solve the problem once and for all, and so that you and I in 10 years are not having the same conversation about the same mines, that we can actually accomplish something here and move on to other priorities.
00:46:42.900Gold is used in plating and a lot of electrical components, things like that.
00:46:47.420But when you look at gold, for instance, there's a ton of gold to be recycled. There's tons of copper to be recycled in different areas. And there's piles of computers and cell phones that could be mined for certain minerals. So one of the things to look at here is recycling our mineral supply and not looking at it as a throwaway thing.
00:47:09.120We are certainly going to need more metals to deal with climate change.
00:47:14.100The question is, where are they going to come from?
00:47:16.220How much of that can we get through recycling?
00:47:18.340How much of that can we get through different technologies?
00:47:21.460And if we are really going to need more mining, that needs to be done in a vastly different way than it's been done and that's been done now.
00:47:29.920If the mining industry wants to step up and say, yeah, we're going to help with this climate strategy, they can't do that at the expense of salmon and water quality and habitat.
00:47:40.220That if they are going to expand their activities, they're going to have to expand their safeguards as well.
00:47:45.920So it's not as simple as we could just mine our way out of this.
00:47:50.680That's an easy corporate slogan to throw out there, but it ignores things like looking for different technologies, recycling.
00:47:57.500and then also where are these mines going to be you know everybody thinks gold is this rare
00:48:02.420material i mean there's gold everywhere the question is where is it in a in a way that
00:48:08.000there's enough of it and it's and you can get at it economically um i had one mining engineer tell
00:48:13.540me that uh you can have an economical mine you can have an environmentally safe mine but you can't
00:48:18.760have both because it's too expensive you know that's a that's kind of a disturbing concept there
00:48:24.100but i think you know us as environmentalists have really been challenged like this we have to look
00:48:30.160and say well you know we're not going to abandon our push for clean energy and and dealing with
00:48:34.800the climate strategy but on the other hand we don't want to give free reign to the mining industry
00:48:38.760and that probably isn't you know sufficient anyway so i think it's a big challenge here of okay can
00:48:44.760can the mining industry change to where they can contribute to the climate climate change
00:48:49.880strategies are they willing to do that and how are we going to create a regime that creates some
00:48:55.600trust on both sides but clearly climate change is driving all kinds of debates and controversies
00:49:02.800whether it's over salmon fishing and how many fish whoever gets to catch whether it's over
00:49:09.280water supply and use and who gets the amount of water from the rivers and now you know on
00:49:14.540how are we going to address a very possible aggressive expansion of mining in different
00:49:20.600areas so i don't think any of us have the answer to this one but clearly mining our way out of it
00:49:27.080is not a solution additional mining may be an option here and part of the overall approach
00:49:36.160but it's just not as simple as that and there's a you know an expansion in mining comes with cost
00:49:41.380cost to fish, cost to water quality, cost for cleanup. And one thing I wanted to get at is
00:49:47.900this kind of issue of sustainability. We had been contacted by a contractor for a mining company a
00:49:54.160couple of weeks ago, and they said they were doing a sustainability report and they wanted to
00:49:57.520interview us. Well, our first question was, what do you mean by sustainability? Are you talking
00:50:01.880sustainability of this mine, of the mining industry, of fish, of fishing? And they didn't
00:50:08.560have a good answer and our take on this was well the minerals if you mine them out of the ground
00:50:14.560yeah you get 10 or 20 years of economic activity then they're gone and then you have a ticking time
00:50:19.180bomb the salmon since the beginning of time have always come back to these rivers and if we give
00:50:25.040them a productive healthy place to come back to water quality spawning gravel those salmon are
00:50:31.640going to continue to come back forever they will continue to provide the food the resource the
00:50:36.160economics, the culture, and the recreation, if we just give them a happy home. That is a long-term
00:50:42.900sustainable vision. When you look at sustainability related to the mining industry, I don't know how
00:50:48.260you could ask, is this mine sustainable? It's one mining project. I think you could ask, does it
00:50:53.060threaten other sustainable resources? Then you could look at the sustainability of the mining
00:50:59.180industry as a whole. How sustainable is it economically? How sustainable is it given its
00:51:04.500effects on other industries, other habitats, other landscapes. So we keep seeing this phrase
00:51:10.420sustainability thrown around and I think people mean vastly different things there. When we talk
00:51:15.460sustainability, we mean whatever happens in these watersheds, it needs to sustain the existing
00:51:21.140values, the water quality, the fisheries, the game populations, and the essential overall integrity
00:51:28.660of these watersheds so that they're not carved up into little pieces. And that also gets at this
00:51:34.660long-term vision. You know, BC's long-term vision in the transboundary watershed seems to be based
00:51:39.700on mining. The vision on the Alaska side is fish. You know, we get a lot more in fisheries values
00:51:46.980out of these watersheds than minerals. And with BC, it's the opposite. So you have that kind of
00:51:52.600contradiction to deal with as well, not only for specific mines, but for the long-term vision of
00:51:58.540what kind of activities are going to be essentially allowed and fostered and encouraged in these
00:52:02.780watersheds here. And maybe this whole climate change issue has finally given us some more of
00:52:09.860a long-term vision here and starting to raise some questions, whether we can carry this out,
00:52:14.760whether we can answer the questions, whether we can fix the problems, who knows. But I think we've
00:52:18.860got to take a much longer-term view of these watersheds and the activities that we're going
00:52:25.700be promoting in them. That was such a good overview and something that I feel really
00:52:31.280passionate about with thinking about the Green New Deal or this green energy industrial complex
00:52:41.620where I know we, you know, I think for most of us, we want so badly to find solutions out of
00:52:51.040the crisis we're in but i see that so many of these solutions are in no way getting us out of
00:52:57.260the crisis they're actually can just the continuation of what put us in the crisis to
00:53:01.860begin with and i think it's really important for us to to take a deep breath and actually look at
00:53:10.440what it really is and what it's going to take us to get to these places and how destructive mining
00:53:16.860has been. And sure, maybe you're not pumping fossil fuels out of the ground to put in your
00:53:24.140vehicle, but there had to be fossil fuels taken out of the ground to be putting into the huge
00:53:29.460machines that create the mines that then pollute the rivers. So it's like, we cannot be fooled
00:53:35.520here. We need to really see the full picture so that we can consensually make decisions. So I'm
00:53:43.660just yeah so happy you spoke to that it's definitely something that i feel so strongly
00:53:48.140about and yeah chris this has been so beautiful and just and disturbing and like all of the things
00:53:56.020that these conversations are both um just the beauty and the terror and as we come to a close
00:54:03.700i'm thinking about how rivers without borders has been doing this work since 1999 and i'd like to
00:54:09.860ask you about what your dream is for this place in terms of reclamation, a moratorium on mining,
00:54:17.240and getting folks to pledge allegiance to these rivers that supersede colonial borders and
00:54:22.900jurisdictions. Yeah, the border really is a, it's just a line on the map. You know, the fish don't
00:54:29.440respect the border. The pollution doesn't magically stop at the border. You know, one of the things
00:54:33.780that's come over the last few years is people realizing that, you know, that border is a
00:54:38.400artificial construct, that we've got to look at these watersheds as an intact systems and not look
00:54:44.100at them as, okay, the upstream half in BC and the lower half. So one of the things is taking that
00:54:47.900holistic approach there. And as you just said, one thing I did mention was that climate footprint
00:54:56.760of, okay, if the mining industry is going to expand, what is going to be then their contribution
00:55:00.880to global warming itself? Because you've got a lot of diesel trucks, you've got a lot of gasoline
00:55:04.760powered equipment. And there is now more, I think, willingness of some of the mining companies to
00:55:12.560address those type of, or at least quantify those impacts when they do their environmental kind of
00:55:16.520analysis of the mines. So that realization is there as well. I guess our long-term vision for
00:55:22.560the TACU, I'd say we cut it in two pieces. The first one, clean up and close down the Tulsa
00:55:28.520chief in a way that it it just will never be reopened stop the pollution clean it up and
00:55:34.480essentially restore the site to as much of its previous condition as we can and then what we
00:55:41.160would like to see is somehow address new polaris and halt the development of that mine which is
00:55:47.260right across the river from tusk with chief and then in the longer term i think you would formally
00:55:53.480create a no you call it a no staking reserve uh protected area there are a variety of different
00:55:59.720designations that it would essentially forbid that kind of heavy industrial development and
00:56:05.320recognize the fish and water quality and cultural values of the area and prioritize sustaining them
00:56:11.980versus opening up the area to road building and mining and logging and things like that
00:56:17.420um that would get at the short-term problem with tulsa chief we create a long-term vision
00:56:21.920I think it would set somewhat of a precedent. And then we can actually move on. You know, this has been 20 years over this relatively small mine, while BC is moving aggressively, create mines that are 10s, 20, 30 times bigger, would last a lot longer. And therefore, if problems come up, they're going to be vastly increased as well.
00:56:42.820so um uh and also recognize the taku watershed itself as a potential refuge for fish during
00:56:50.700climate change the amount of clean cold water it has the amount of rain and snowfall we're not
00:56:56.680worried about the taku going dry anytime soon and it could you know be a freshwater refuge for fish
00:57:02.940during climate change and during a period when you know the ocean is a little bit hostile to the
00:57:07.620to the salmon as as well here so yeah the long-term vision is to uh maintain the integrity
00:57:13.780the water quality the fish and the taku and make sure that we're not dealing with mining threats
00:57:18.480anymore because we have a host of other activities and issues in the trans boundary to deal with
00:57:23.480we need to solve the taku and and move on yeah well before we say goodbye i'm wondering chris
00:57:33.600how can listeners support this work? Boy, there's, I mean, this is really where we're
00:57:38.640looking at kind of an all hands on deck thing. And there are a host of things that are needed here.
00:57:44.320I mean, some people have money to donate. Some people have time to donate. Some people have
00:57:48.160technical expertise. Someone knows Lisa Murkowski and goes to cocktail parties with her. I mean,
00:57:54.080there's the host, there's a whole range of things we need to do here. A couple of things we're
00:57:57.560trying to do right now are the kind of same old boring traditional stuff of writing letters,
00:58:01.600writing emails making sure murkowski and sullivan uh continue to hold bc's feet to the fire
00:58:08.580continue to keep the pressure on governor dunlevy here in alaska to maintain the focus on trans
00:58:14.560boundary um on the bc side we're trying to get a flood of letters into the ministries
00:58:19.760telling them that this is an important public issue
00:58:24.000to talk with chief is a priority so there's that there's um and i gotta admit i i don't
00:58:32.260know social media at all i'm a kind of technological luddite the social media is
00:58:36.440kind of a mystery to me but one of the things is just getting people together and that's putting
00:58:41.760out information on facebook and the other platforms getting our action alerts out as far
00:58:46.700and wide as they can on the letters if you're a fisherman if you have a fishing business we
00:58:51.000definitely need your help because those types of businesses are dependent on a healthy talk who
00:58:55.460so one of the best things i really recommend folks is to get in touch with uh with us and
00:59:01.320depending on your your wants your needs your abilities your skills uh there are a variety of
00:59:06.400things we could use uh help with but one of the big things again is just that public pressure
00:59:10.800that sends the message that this is an important public issue we're not going to let it go
00:59:15.240this is a a a fundamental first step that if we can't take we're never going to be able to deal
00:59:20.740with the implications of other mining.
00:59:23.900So the Tuska chief is a necessary first step
00:59:48.600We're all facing the same dynamic here.
00:59:50.440we're downstream of bc mines and that's the dynamic from montana to southeast alaska here
00:59:57.080that's millions of people who are involved in that and having those people come out in public
01:00:02.200and say i want this river protected or i need it protected because this is what feeds my family
01:00:08.360i think that has had a huge impact on bc and it's brought the state of alaska and the u.s federal
01:00:13.720government into the fight but it's been 20 years here we've got to continue to maintain this
01:00:18.840this pressure so a lot of it is just people power here um and then you can get more into technical
01:00:25.240things uh if you know if if there are folks with technical expertises that can analyze
01:00:30.700effects of mining they know about heavy metals and fish so we can if there are folks interested
01:00:37.300we will one way or another find something for them to do to uh to help us here i guess one of
01:00:43.140one other thing i would add that that's kind of odd that you hear from folks is uh there was a
01:00:47.900bumper sticker uh a few years ago here in uh in juneau and southeast and i think bristol bay that
01:00:54.120said um you know do you love wild salmon then eat one and um you know i gotta admit i got a fair
01:01:00.480amount of questions about well wait a minute aren't we trying to save the fish um why would
01:01:05.560you want to eat them aren't there aren't they endangered um so part of our push here is to
01:01:11.000essentially you know maintain this resource i mean wild salmon are incredible resources
01:01:14.600They're the best food on the planet. They support, you know, thousands of families in a sustainable industry. The fisheries, although it's always a controversy, how it's regulated, who gets to catch, how many fish in general, I think are decently regulated up here.
01:01:31.060you know, the biggest threat to them is not overfishing for sure. But I think to demonstrate
01:01:36.420to, you know, the powers that be that salmon are important, they're not just, it's not just a
01:01:42.620pretty picture we want to see in a museum. It's not something we want to put behind a fence and
01:01:46.140just look at that they are an economic, cultural, recreational resource. And we want to make sure
01:01:51.520that resource is around forever. So that 100 years, you know, we don't have a couple fish in
01:01:55.780the Smithsonian Museum where people can walk in there and see them in a tank because they're not
01:01:59.380in the wild anymore so oddly enough i think one of the things people can do to help protect and
01:02:04.940preserve and promote wild salmon is to actually eat one you know they're not all endangered the
01:02:12.360fisheries in general are fairly well regulated farm salmon have a host of problems they're
01:02:17.680they're definitely not near the quality of the fish they have their own environmental problems
01:02:21.820and they actually threaten wild salmon by being in the same waters with them predators and pests
01:02:27.840and genetic issues there you know the issue with farm salmon is you got to move the farms on land
01:02:33.540and i think that would solve a fair amount of the problems now that the farm salmon are in the ocean
01:02:37.380in these big pens that's creating a real risk to uh to wild fish but farm salmon can certainly
01:02:43.360provide a hell of a lot of protein if it's done right but the wild fisheries are still you'll
01:02:47.780never match the quality of a wild caught chinook as compared to a farm fish so i think people should
01:02:55.160not be afraid of eating wild salmon in general they're not on the endangered list except when
01:03:00.740you look at some of the columbia river and oregon and a few california stocks but they're not
01:03:05.400fished hard but there are healthy sustainable stocks of wild salmon out there that can put
01:03:09.780food on the table and i don't want folks to think that they that uh that salmon are not a resource
01:03:16.420you can utilize uh whether through fishing or eating or food you know they really sustain people
01:03:22.400throughout the region here, both economically and spiritually, and I guess also nutritionally.
01:03:29.900Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about their deliciousness as you speak. So thank you,
01:03:39.080Chris, for all that you've shared with us. I'm really appreciative and can't wait to get up
01:03:44.260there and hopefully meet you in person soon. Oh, you're welcome. You too. Thanks for having
01:03:48.740me on and I look forward to seeing you here in a couple weeks. Ditto. Thank you for listening to
01:03:57.380For the Wild podcast. The music you heard today was by John Yons, Golden Oak, and Lark Hall.
01:04:03.460For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.