Watershed-protection advocates told Alaska lawmakers that the three transboundary rivers crossing from Canada into Southeast need more protection from the risks created by mining operations in British Columbia, including more data on water quality.
Tracking and ensuring the health of the waterways and their salmon runs, including the Stikine River, requires more monitoring over a wider area for more years, research scientist Chris Sergeant testified at the House Fisheries Committee on April 27.
“The good news … is they’re still thriving watersheds,” he said, but Sergeant cautioned the water quality monitoring for hazardous runoff is insufficient. “We’re working in too small an area in these watersheds in too small a time.”
British Columbia mining activity — past operations, currently operating mines and exploration for new prospects — is prevalent in the watersheds of the Stikine River, the Taku River that empties near Juneau, and the Unuk River behind Ketchikan.
The three rivers produce 80% of the wild king salmon in Southeast Alaska, Breanna Walker, campaign coordinator for conservation group Salmon Beyond Borders, told state legislators.
Walker repeated the group’s call for state and federal officials to push British Columbia for more regulation of mining, in particular requiring that mine operators post full reclamation bonds to cover any potential cleanup and restoration costs.
Alaska and British Columbia started a joint working group to monitor water quality on the transboundary rivers a year after the 2014 Mount Polley mine tailings dam failure in the center of the province, spilling 30 million cubic yards of mine waste into a lake and creeks that feed the Fraser River, the province’s biggest salmon producer.
The gold and copper mine has been closed since 2019. The company’s website describes it as “care and maintenance status, “ adding, “the mine’s closure will not impact the ongoing environmental monitoring and remediation programs.”
Sergeant, who said he testified before the Alaska Legislature on the same issues two years ago, told the House Fisheries Committee that long-term funding is needed to ensure scientists have enough data to determine the effects on water quality from upstream mining.
The U.S. Geological Survey collects data, much of it at border stream gauges, and Congress last year appropriated $3.6 million for work related to the transboundary rivers, including baseline water quality monitoring at the border sites.
But more measurement sites are needed, with more frequent data collection, said Sergeant, who lived in Juneau for 10 years and is now a freshwater ecologist at the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station. He continues to work on transboundary river issues.
In particular, he told the House committee, water sampling is needed in the winter to determine if mining wastes are more concentrated during periods of low water flow. He said it’s a bigger issue on the Taku River, where runoff from the Tulsequah Chief mine, which has been closed for more than 50 years, runs into a tributary of the Taku.
Researchers have measured elevated levels of copper and arsenic and other metals in the Tulsequah River, Sergeant said. “There’s still a question how far downstream that persists.”
The Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is working with the USGS on monitoring water quality on the Stikine and Taku, and hopes to add the Unuk River, said Raymond Paddock, the tribes’ environmental coordinator.
Crews take water samples at two spots on each river, at the surface and at five-foot depths, measuring for dissolved metals and oxygen levels, Paddock said.
The Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes is advocating for increased federal funding for more baseline data collection, and much broader sampling at multiple sites on the rivers.
Alaska and British Columbia officials announced more than two months ago that they had completed and will not continue data collection on the transboundary watersheds, despite concerns from fishing and tribal interests that the effort does not go far enough.
“Given the existence of other sampling programs planned by state, federal or provincial agencies throughout the transboundary region, there is no need to continue the joint program,” the state and province said in a joint statement.
A 22-page final report released Feb. 25 said two years of data showed that the waters studied met quality standards on Alaska’s side of the border. There were times when heavy metals were over the limit in the sediment, but the report said there are a lot of naturally occurring minerals in the region.
Those invited to testify at the House Fisheries Committee said the work is not done. “Indigenous people need to be sitting at the table whenever transboundary issues are discussed,” said Wrangell’s Tis Peterman, special projects consultant for the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission.
One committee member was skeptical of the risk presented by upriver mines. “I grew up in northern Minnesota, and I used to swim in the tailings ponds — and look at me,” said Rep. Kevin McCabe, a freshman from Big Lake, in the Matanuska Valley.
“I think there’s all sorts of different tailings and tailings ponds, and some of them are toxic. Some of them are not,” he said.
McCabe also asked why mining interests weren’t more represented in transboundary discussions during the House committee meeting. “It seems like we’ve heard from a whole bunch of fish people here today. I’m concerned that there’s no balance in this hearing.”
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