Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 56

Alaskans concerned with Canadian mining plans – by Becky Bohrer (Associated Press/Durango Herald – August 16, 2015)

August 17, 2015

http://www.durangoherald.com/

JUNEAU, Alaska – A provincial map showing the planned or potential mining activity in British Columbia is so pocked that Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott says it looks like it has the measles. It’s the cluster of dots in northwest British Columbia – including a prospect billed as one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world – that has many residents across the border in southeast Alaska on edge.

While it’s not clear how many of the projects ultimately may become mines – many are only in exploration – last year’s failure of a mine-waste storage facility in another part of British Columbia heightened fears about how development near Alaska’s shared border with the province could impact salmon-bearing rivers and streams that flow into southeast Alaska.

Currently seven major projects have potential trans-boundary implications. One is the Red Chris copper and gold mine, upstream from the Alaska towns of Wrangell and Petersburg, which received final permits in June.

It’s owned by Imperial Metals, which also owns Mount Polley Mine, the site of last August’s tailings dam breach that sent water and mine-related materials into waters near the mine. Activists in Alaska said the incident showed that dams can fail.

B.C. First Nations and Alaskan Natives Join Forces to Fight Border Mines – by Judith Lavoie (Desmog Canada.com – August 12, 2015)

August 14, 2015

http://www.desmog.ca/

A powerful alliance of B.C. First Nations and Southeast Alaska natives has been forged in the aftermath of the Mount Polley dam collapse and tribes, who have not worked together for generations, are aiming to put the brakes on B.C.’s border mining boom.

Tears flowed after a May meeting in Vancouver when Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and vice-president Bob Chamberlin agreed to support the newly formed United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group in its bid for Alaskan — and particularly tribal — input into B.C.’s decision-making process on mines along the Southeast Alaska border.

“We are bringing together the tribes from both sides of the border and building a relationship. We can make more noise together than when we are separated by a border that has not been part of our tradition,” said Mike Hoyt, leader of the Teeyhittaan clan from the Stikine River.

It was a historic meeting that could be a catalyst for change, according to Phillip.

“It was very significant, coming together with our brothers and sisters in Alaska. I think it was a long time coming,” he said.

B.C. Must Heed Mount Polley Disaster’s Lessons – by David Suzuki (Huffington Post – August 12, 2015)

August 13, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

It was a dramatic image: millions of cubic metres of waste cascading from the Mount Polley mine breach into the Quesnel watershed in B.C.’s Interior. Besides destroying a nine-kilometre creek and endangering salmon and the neighbouring community of Likely, the catastrophe damaged the mining industry’s reputation.

In the months following, fingers pointed, independent panels weighed in and committees were struck. One year later, the Mount Polley mine is operating again, this time with a conditional permit and no long-term plan to deal with excess tailings.

In British Columbia, after metals are extracted from large mines, the finely ground rock that remains is stored under water behind earth-and-rock dams, which can prevent acid mine drainage. (Acid mine drainage occurs when water flows through exposed acidic minerals and becomes contaminated.) But storing massive quantities of water in large open pits near towns and waterways is risky.

First Nations, scientists and the independent review panel investigating the breach point to dry stacking as a safer, proven alternative to century-old wet tailings technology.

Op-Ed The Animas River spill and the myth of mine safety – by Joel R. Reynolds (Los Angeles Times – August 13, 2015)

August 13, 2015

http://www.latimes.com/

Joel R. Reynolds is Western director and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The definition of a mine, said Mark Twain, is a hole in the ground owned by liars. And this month the industry’s biggest lie — that it can be trusted with our water — is once again on display as another mining disaster has spilled millions of gallons of toxic mining waste and chemicals into our streams, rivers and lakes.

On Aug. 5, at the abandoned Gold King mine in southwest Colorado, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup team inadvertently unleashed into a tributary of the Animas River a 3-million-gallon soup of toxic mining wastewater. The accident has closed the Animas indefinitely and threatens drinking water supplies, the economy and wildlife in the region, into New Mexico and potentially all the way to Lake Powell.

This latest tragedy followed by one year almost to the day a pair of mine containment failures in Canada and Mexico. On Aug. 4, 2014, at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in central British Columbia, an earthen dam built 17 years ago to hold mining waste laced with mercury, lead, copper and other heavy metals — called tailings — failed, inundating the Fraser River watershed.

Gold mine spill shines light on practice of avoiding environmental assessment – by Nelson Bennett (Business Vancouver – August 11, 2015)

August 11, 2015

https://www.biv.com/

Pollution on a remote northern B.C. island only discovered after whistleblower reported improper practices

A small gold mine on an uninhabited island on B.C.’s north coast has some big problems. Just seven months after its Tel mine was declared to be in commercial production, Banks Island Gold Ltd. (TSX-V:BOZ) has been forced to shut it down, putting 100 people out of work and leaving investors with shares that fell more than 70% in value over the course of one week.

There is some question whether the mine can reopen, as the company had been struggling with a $14 million deficit before the mine was shut down and says it will need to seek “immediate financing” in order to restart.

The mine was ordered shut down for unauthorized discharges of effluent from its mine site that resulted from flooding. An inspection by the Ministry of Energy and Mines also found a number of permit violations, including the processing of ore from an unpermitted mine site.

The company is facing potential legal action from the Gitxaala Nation, which says the Banks Island Gold mine is an example of project splitting and scoping –

“They’re Getting Away with It”: Locals Say No Blame Means No Compensation for Mount Polley Mine Spill Victims – by Carol Linnitt (Desmog Canada.com – August 9, 2015)

August 11, 2015

http://www.desmog.ca/

Whether it was an act of God or the fault of negligent mine operators, the cause of Mount Polley mine spill — the worst mining disaster in Canadian history — remains officially undetermined, leaving local residents in a frustrated state of limbo.

One year ago this week the Mount Polley mine tailings impoundment collapsed, sending a catastrophic 24 million cubic metres of contaminated mining waste down the Hazeltine Creek and into Quesnel Lake, a local source of drinking water and in peak years can host up to 60 per cent of the province’s sockeye salmon run.

The province of B.C. says the Mount Polley Mining Corporation, owned by Imperial Metals, is still under investigation although some fear a January report that found glacial silt responsible for the instability of the collapsed tailings pond may take culpability away from the company.

Kanahus Manuel, a local indigenous activist and member of the Secwepemc First Nation, said the province’s decision to approve a partial re-opening of the Mount Polley mine last month signals to the media and the public that the company is without blame.

Clinton strays from her roots as coal miner’s great granddaughter – by Valerie Volcovici and Amanda Becker (Reuters U.S. – August 10, 2015)

August 10, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON – In her 2008 bid for the White House, Hillary Clinton cast herself as a blue-collar Democrat who was unabashedly pro-coal, a stance that helped her beat opponent Barack Obama easily in primaries in states that produced or were reliant on coal.

Eight years later, a Reuters review of her recent campaign speeches and policy announcements shows that the great-granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner is now talking about the coal industry in the past tense.

The little-noticed shift in rhetoric speaks volumes about how the United States’ energy landscape has changed since Clinton last campaigned in 2008: oil and gas fracking have exploded and cheap natural gas has taken a huge bite out of coal.

In the intervening years the Obama administration has also proposed aggressive measures to tamp down greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like coal, while once-powerful coal companies like Alpha Natural Resources, which declared bankruptcy last week, have lost their political clout.

GLOBE EDITORIAL: To glimpse the future of oil, look at coal in the U.S. (Globe and Mail – August 8, 2015)

August 10, 2015

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

“We’re the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and we’re the last generation that can do something about it,” Barack Obama said on Monday. The President backed up his words with the Clean Power Plan, a White House initiative that will almost certainly end coal-fired electricity production in the United States in the next decade.

There are five lessons in the announcement for Canada, which recently signed on to the G7 commitment to “decarbonize” the global economy by the end of the century.

Lesson 1: Greenhouse-gas emissions are a legitimate public-health issue. Mr. Obama has done an end run around Congress and unilaterally set regulations to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from electricity production by 32 per cent (compared with levels in 2005) by the year 2030.

He can do this under the Clean Air Act, which obliges the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate any pollutant that is a danger to public health. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that large amounts of carbon dioxide qualify as a dangerous pollutant, since they lead to climate change.

EPA: Pollution from mine spill much worse than feared – by Steve Garrison and Joshua Kellogg (USA Today – August 10, 2015)

August 10, 2015

http://www.usatoday.com/

FARMINGTON, N.M. — Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday that the Gold King Mine discharged an estimated 3 million gallons of contaminated water, three times the amount previously believed.

The mine continues to discharge 500 gallons per minute, EPA Region 8 administrator Shaun McGrath said in a teleconference call Sunday afternoon, but the polluted water is being contained and treated in two ponds by the site of the spill near Silverton, Colo.

According to preliminary testing data the EPA released Sunday, arsenic levels in the Durango area of the Animas River were, at their peak, 300 times the normal level, and lead was 3,500 times the normal level. Officials said those levels have dropped significantly since the plume moved through the area.

Both metals pose a significant danger to humans at high levels of concentration.

“Yes, those numbers are high and they seem scary,” said Deborah McKean, chief of the Region 8 Toxicology and Human Health and Risk Assessment. “But it’s not just a matter of toxicity of the chemicals, it’s a matter of exposure.”

Coal Industry Wobbles as Market Forces Slug Away – by James B. Stewart (New York Times – August 6, 2015)

August 6, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

In April 2005, President George W. Bush hailed “clean coal” as a key to “greater energy independence,” pledging $2 billion in research funds that promised a new golden age for America‘s most abundant energy resource.

But a decade later, the United States coal industry is reeling as never before in its history, the victim of new environmental regulations, intensifying attacks by activists, collapsing coal prices, and — above all — the rise of cheap alternative fuels, especially natural gas.

This week President Obama slammed the industry with tougher-than-expected rules from the Environmental Protection Agency limiting power plant carbon emissions, which will accelerate an already huge shift from coal to natural gas and other alternatives. “Clean coal” remains an expensive and thus far impractical pipe dream. Coal is the world’s biggest source of carbon emissions by far and the leading culprit in global warming. Coal advocates like Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky senator and Republican majority leader, have accused the president of an out-and-out “war on coal.”

But it’s collapsing prices and heavy debt loads that are driving the industry into bankruptcy.

In coal-mining Kentucky, shock and dismay over Clean Power Plan’s new targets – by Francine Kiefer and Ryan Alessi (Yahoo News – August 5, 2015)

August 5, 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/

Kentucky was on track to meet an earlier proposed target in the Clean Power Plan. Now the state, which has lost thousands of coal-mining jobs in recent years, plans to fight the final, more stringent rule in the courts.

It is a tense time in Kentucky. The Environmental Protection Agency has just come out with its final rule on reducing carbon emissions – the strongest step ever taken to counter climate change in the United States – and this coal state is reeling.

“We are shocked at the difference in the proposal we were given to work on last year, versus the final rule announced Monday,” said Dick Brown, spokesman for the state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet, in an e-mail. The new target is a 27 percent increase in the amount of CO2 emissions that Kentucky’s power plants have to reduce by 2030, he says.

In many states, residents may be wondering how the EPA’s Clean Power Plan will affect their energy bills, for example. But in states like Kentucky, the new carbon rule arguably hits even closer to home. The Bluegrass State is America’s third-largest coal producer, and it gets more than 90 percent of its electricity from coal. Even before the carbon rule was finalized, the state had lost thousands of coal-mining jobs in the past two years alone.

Finnish nickel mining execs on trial for environmental damage (AFP – August 4, 2015)

August 4, 2015

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/

Four former executives with a Finnish nickel mining company accused of contaminating lakes with uranium, cadmium and other toxic elements went on trial Tuesday charged with aggravated environmental damage.

Talvivaara Sotkamo, the bankrupt operator of the European Union’s biggest nickel mine, is also named among the defendants in the highly-publicised case in Kainuu, east-central Finland.

The prosecutor asked the district court to seize 13.3 million euros ($14.6 million) in illegal profits from Talvivaara Sotkamo’s estate and the four executives, according to court documents.

Situated around 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of Helsinki, the mine opened in 2008 amid expectations it would usher in a new era in nickel mining in Finland.

But the operation ended in environmental disaster and economic failure after toxic levels of nickel, cadmium, uranium, aluminium and zinc were detected in nearby lakes and rivers in 2012, and again in 2013 after waste water began to leak from the mine.

Obama Didn’t Kill Coal, the Market Did – by Michael R. Bloomberg (Bloomberg News – August 4, 2015)

August 4, 2015

http://www.bloombergview.com/

Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Power Plan are describing it in apocalyptic terms. But much of what they believe about the plan — that it will destroy the coal industry, kill jobs and raise costs for consumers — is wrong. And it’s important to understand why.

The overblown political rhetoric about the plan tends to obscure the market reality that the coal industry has been in steady decline for a decade, partly as a result of the natural gas boom, but mostly because consumers are demanding cleaner air and action on climate change.

Communities across the U.S. have led the way in persuading utilities to close dirty old coal plants and transition to cleaner forms of energy. The Sierra Club’s grass-roots Beyond Coal campaign (which Bloomberg Philanthropies funds) has helped close or phase out more than 200 coal plants over the past five years.

The primary reason for the public revolt against coal is simple: It causes death, disease and debilitating respiratory problems. A decade ago, coal pollution was killing 13,000 people a year. Today, the number is down to 7,500, which means that more than 5,000 Americans are living longer, healthier lives each year thanks to cleaner power.

COMMENTARY: Mount Polley mine disaster’s first anniversary is no reason to celebrate – by Ana Simeon and Ugo Lapointe (The Stright.com – July 31, 2015)

August 4, 2015

http://www.straight.com/

Ana Simeon is with Sierra Club B.C. Ugo Lapointe is with MiningWatch Canada.

On August 4 last year, Quesnel Lake residents and communities along the Fraser River were eagerly anticipating one of the largest sockeye returns in recent history.

What they got instead was a nightmare: over 24 billion litres of mine waste burst through Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley dam into their watershed.

Mount Polley is the largest mining waste spill in Canada’s history. The consequences and overall costs of this disaster concern us all, including a steep cost on the industry’s reputation and public trust.

Yet a year later, the mine is running again under a restricted permit. While both the company and the B.C. government attempt to be reassuring, many questions remain unanswered.

White House set to adopt sweeping curbs on carbon pollution – by Joby Warrick (Washington Post – August 1, 2015)

August 4, 2015

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The Obama administration will formally adopt an ambitious regulation for cutting greenhouse-gas pollution on Monday, requiring every state to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants and putting the country on a course that could change the way millions of Americans get their electricity.

A retooled version of the administration’s Clean Power Plan, first proposed a year ago, will seek to accelerate the shift to renewable energy while setting tougher goals for slashing carbon emissions blamed for global warming, according to administration officials briefed on the details.

The new plan sets a goal of cutting carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030, compared with 2005 levels — a 9 percent jump from the previous target of 30 percent — while rewarding states and utility companies that move quickly to expand their investment in solar and wind power.

Many states will face tougher requirements for lowering greenhouse-gas emissions under the revised plan.