A small Canadian First Nation and an Indigenous group in Alaska each have challenged a British Columbia permit decision for a massive mining project across the border from southern Southeast Alaska.
The challenges, filed earlier this month in British Columbia’s Supreme Court, call for legal reviews of the provincial government’s decision earlier this year to let a Canadian company hang on, indefinitely, to a key environmental permit.
Seabridge Gold, a Toronto-based company, has been pushing for years to advance what it describes as the largest undeveloped gold project in the world, known as KSM. It would involve a complex of open-pit and underground mines across four mineral deposits buried in the rugged British Columbia mountains in the Unuk and Nass River watersheds.
Both rivers bear salmon. The Nass River lies entirely within British Columbia, south of the border with Alaska. The Unuk flows southwest into Alaska, near Ketchikan and the Tsimshian community of Metlakatla, where some residents are concerned about environmental and cultural impacts from mining.
The tribally led Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission and a British Columbia conservation group, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, jointly filed one of the challenges. It argues that the provincial government was wrong to deem KSM “substantially started” – a decision that makes the key permit permanent, instead of expiring in 2026.
The Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation in northwest B.C. filed a separate challenge, saying the province failed in its legal duty to consult with the First Nation. In its challenge, the First Nation said Seabridge intended to locate its large mine waste site on the nation’s traditional territory and that the province and Seabridge had not meaningfully addressed their concerns.
Seabridge Gold has financial agreements with two other, larger First Nations in the region, the Nisga’a and Tahltan, which formed a partnership last year to participate in the project.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported a Seabridge executive saying that Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha’s rights to the area have not been recognized by the province. The executive said, rather, that the area is recognized as part of Tahltan territory and also is contained in a Nisga’a treaty, according to the report.
The Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha cite a 2023 letter from the province with an updated territorial map that encompasses the area in question.
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