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It will cost at least $6.4-billion to tackle selenium contamination from Teck Resources Ltd.’s Elk Valley coal mines, according to a new report – far exceeding a $1.9-billion security bond required by the B.C. government to cover cleanup costs.
The report, commissioned by environmental group Wildsight, bases its price tag on calculations of what it would cost to implement Vancouver-based Teck’s current plan of building water treatment plants through to 2027 and then running them for 60 years.
The resulting estimates raise concerns that B.C. taxpayers could be stuck with a hefty cleanup bill, said Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher at Wildsight, which released the report on Tuesday.
“We’ve been concerned for quite a while that the amount of money that Teck has put aside for selenium remediation with the B.C. government would not be enough to cover the actual cost,” he said. The Wildsight report adds to heightened scrutiny on the issue of selenium leaching from Teck’s Elk Valley coal mines in southeastern B.C. to river systems in Canada and the United States.
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