Participants in a transboundary mining conference in Juneau last week said recent natural and industrial disasters show why their heightened concerns are justified.
“I think that people are realizing that more and more this is an emergency situation,” Wrangell’s Esther Aaltséen Reese, president of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, said in an interview Aug. 28. “We can’t just keep coming to these meetings and saying the same thing.”
The third annual Transboundary Mining Conference began two days after a major landslide hit Ketchikan on Aug. 25, one of several landslides and flooding events in Southeast Alaska in recent years. Participants in the four-day conference said such incidents expose how increasingly severe weather is increasing the risk at mining sites across the border in Canada where damage or an accident could have severe environmental impacts.
Another key incident raised during the conference was a spill in June of cyanide and other mining waste due to an infrastructure failure at Victoria Gold’s Eagle mine, the Yukon’s Territory’s largest and newest gold mine, into a nearby creek that is part of the transboundary Yukon River system.
That prompted an Aug. 13 letter by Alaska’s congressional delegation asking the Biden administration to take more aggressive action toward Canada to clean up such pollution — including at the Tulsequah Chief mine about 20 miles from the border near Juneau “which has been polluting international waters for more than 66 years” — and curb future damaging activities.
“Promises to remediate the site have been made over and over year after year, but never come to fruition, prolonging the impacts of its acidic drainage,” U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in videotaped remarks presented to the conference on Aug. 29. “Today, the global demand for minerals is soaring. Many new mines are being developed on the Canadian side of the border, increasing fears that an incident just upstream in Canada will have devastating consequences downstream in Alaska.”
There were, however, also presentations during the conference at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall about what in some instances were called historical advances to resolve some of the longstanding issues.
The U.S. and Canadian governments agreed in March, for example, to ask the International Joint Commission (IJC) to work toward mitigating mining pollution into the Elk-Kootenai River that crosses the border between British Columbia and Montana. The agreement — which means the work will be done by an independent body comprised of six governments including tribes — came after years of stalled discussions, said Merrell-Ann Phare, the current IJC commissioner, during a keynote speech to the conference on Aug. 29.
Among the major signs of progress are the stakeholders showing trust in the commission as a neutral arbitrator, aided in part by a new policy “that says science and traditional knowledge have to be part of everything that you’re doing on this up to this point,” Phare said.
“We were (previously) given a number of references that say you have to engage with Indigenous people, or your study board should include Indigenous people,” she said. “But it didn’t actually give equal status to the knowledge of Indigenous people, just as a foundation, and this reference does that.”
The conference also allowed tribal governments to share another step toward progress after a 2021 Supreme Court of Canada ruling declaring Indigenous people who are not Canadian citizens still have constitutionally protected rights if they are descendants of groups that occupied territory there. Reese said seven Southeast Alaska tribes are seeking the same rights to intervene legally in mining activity on the Canadian side of the border.
“We’re the first ones who are testing (that) case, and we’re able to share that with other tribes as we’re trying to create this model for moving forward and making sure that we have a seat at the table in collaboration with the First Nations tribes,” she said.
Canadian mining companies and government agencies were the frequent target of ire of other conference speakers and panel members. But the agenda also included Canadian officials who offered rebuttals to those criticisms
“Canada does have a rigorous impact assessment process, both federally and provincially, and among the highest environmental standards in the world, and we do take great pride in that,” said Anna Classen, regional director general for Environment and Climate Change Canada, in a speech to attendees. “Along with environmental impacts and impacts on Indigenous peoples, cumulative and transboundary effects are also key components in decision making on whether a project can proceed.”
While some dialogue during the conference was confrontational, that is a necessary part of meaningful discussion that results in progress on an issue of such importance where key differences exist, said Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, in remarks as the conference neared its end on Aug. 30.
“I want to thank the federal government folks that were here, the state representatives that have been here because we do have to work together to solve these issues,” he said. “We have to break the reliance that we have on this industrial colonization. We need healthy and thriving communities.”
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