News-Miner Editorial
A relevant event
Canadian mine discharge fell on election day
Published Sunday, September 7, 2008
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Stumble It!As Alaskans were voting against Ballot Measure 4 on Aug. 26, an interesting and relevant event was occurring 200 miles up the Yukon River from the Alaska-Canada border.
The Minto Mine, which Vancouver-based Sherwood Copper Corp. began operating last fall, was inundated by unusually heavy rain. The mine operators forecast the mine’s storage pond would overflow, releasing water that had not yet been fully treated to remove trace amounts of copper. Rather than try to confine the water, where it might absorb more metal, the mine released some of the water, which contained copper levels exceeding the Yukon Territory’s water quality standards.
The discharge from the new Minto Mine raises an interesting question. What effect would Ballot Measure 4 have had upon a similar mine in Alaska? The answer isn’t clear, just like the measure wasn’t. This incident illustrates again that the scientific questions surrounding mine water and its proper regulation are best handled by professionals in the agencies we have created for such purposes.
The Canadians, for their part, didn’t seem too concerned. The Yukon Water Board, a tribunal set up to regulate water quality, issued an emergency license amendment to permit a one-time discharge of up to 350,000 cubic meters from the mine’s reclaim pond through the end of this month. The water had to meet Canada’s federal metal mining effluent standards, which are significantly less stringent than the territory’s. Still, it was a one-day news story in the Yukon and little coverage appeared outside the territory.
That water is now flowing down the Yukon River through Alaska as the fall runs of chum and silver salmon are flowing up the river. The Yukon at Stevens Village, near the Dalton Highway bridge, was running on Friday at 274,000 cubic feet per second, about 100,000 cfs above normal for this time of year.
It takes a vast amount of water to boost the Yukon that far above its usual flow. “We’ve had the wettest summer in 35 years,” said Cynthia Tucker, director of the Yukon government’s development assessment office, which approved one stage in the Sherwood Copper Corp.’s emergency application.
The dilution provided by the Yukon likely makes the Minto Mine’s release an imperceptible event in terms of copper levels within the river’s main stem. Even on a normal year, that would be the case.
The water from the mine pond, which initially flows into a creek before reaching the Yukon, was tested, revealing about 50 micrograms of copper per liter. That’s about five times higher than both the state of Alaska’s and the Yukon Territory’s standards. (Canada’s federal standard allows much more — about 300 to 600 micrograms per liter.)
This isn’t something Alaskans should ignore. Recent scientific studies have found copper, dissolved in water at levels near or below the state’s standards, can have harmful effects on the sense of smell in fish, insects and invertebrates. At the same time, dilution in a stream or river can eliminate harmful concentrations in a distance of mere feet.
Even if recent science and events upstream have some relevance to the state’s water quality standards, science doesn’t support the adoption of confusing, uncertain changes to the law underlying the state’s authority to set those standards. Voters were wise to reject the measure and let the state’s professionals make science-based judgments about when and where to allow mining discharges.
Community Discussion
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Thank God this Minto mine did not happened! They were acting like we did not know their plans before if happened. Try legitimate ways and through only honest ways.
The EPA has pretty tight regs on all the mining activity in Alaska... of coarse there is always potential for natural diasters when industry meets nature.. hello oil spill... but these are caluclated risks we take for profits... We can't stop industry... but we, individually, can start to be more conscious of our green responsibilties. I felt that Measure 4 was just going to add more red tape to strick policies already in place.
Wow -
editorials still on this though the measure is gone....
wonder what side of the issue the DNM was on
The water from the mine pond, which initially flows into a creek before reaching the Yukon, was tested, revealing about 50 micrograms of copper per liter. That’s about five times higher than both the state of Alaska’s and the Yukon Territory’s standards. (Canada’s federal standard allows much more — about 300 to 600 micrograms per liter.)
So the standard is 10 micrograms per liter ? And Canada's standard is up to 600 per liter? It looks like someone is WAY off base here with their numbers or is this another DNM bo-bo?
probably a lot of stuff got leached out and washed into the river systems from a myriad of sources we may not like during those rains. somehow the fish manage to survive. they are tougher than we give them credit for.
Looks like Canada's standards allow for much dirtier water than Alaska and the Yukon Territory. That probably explains the track record of the Trail Smelter that is polluting the Columbia River just before it crosses into the US.
Yeah prop 4 was a really bad idea. The fish will be fine they are tough.
Canada is our upstream neighbor in some of our most vital and larger waterways. As such, I wonder why we're not as a nation, more concerned that Canada enforces lower standards for the mining industry there. This was the case for the Windy Craggy Mine that a gold mining operation wanted to build above the Alsek and Tatsenshini Rivers in Southeast Alaska. The mine did not go in there, ultimately because of the potentially severe consequences just such a situation could have on the salmon runs. We all live downstream.
I think that it would be fair to assume that discussions held with Government of Canada about their requirments is something that does happen, wether or not it is enough.
The article points out that those levels of copper are also diluted within a couple of feet when the river is running at about 2/3 of what has been coming down with the rain they had. It was probably safer for all parties concerned to spill it and let it become diluted instead of filling the pond and frothing a bunch over in a small geographic area causing certain detrimental impact.
The whole reason that wetlands are important is to have an area that freshwater can clean itself. I have read that it takes about four feet of gravel to run water over to clean the gasoline out of it, if hundreds of miles of river dont do it, nothing will. Maybe those Canadians have what we have lost in our rush to be overly regulated, common sense.
Interesting.
You're killing me, Bugger. :) I searched for and found the appropriate sections of the Canadian regulations when I was copy editing this, but didn't take note of the addresses.
Here (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showdoc/cr/... the Canadian regulation. I'll have to find the Yukon one, though.
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