Teck appeals $16 million in fines for Columbia watershed pollution

In January the Canadian government fined British Columbia-based Teck Resources $16 million for polluting the Columbia River watershed.

Teck has since appealed the fines and underscored their $1.2 billion in funding for water treatment, as well as plans to invest heavily in future pollution mitigation.

After Teck filed an appeal the Ktunaxa Nation Council, a local indigenous body, released a statement explaining they viewed the fines as a sign the province of British Columbia was working to hold polluters accountable, and they are "appalled" Teck would seek to reduce their fines.

"The Ktunaxa Nation Council views these appeals as disrespectful to both Ktunaxa exercising jurisdiction in their homelands and the regulatory regime intended to protect the environment, particularly when considering that the penalties issued to Teck amount to a mere 0.16% of the company’s 2022 coal revenues," the Ktunaxa wrote in a press release.

Several weeks after being issued three fines in January 2023 for violating selenium and nitrate standards Teck also announced they would split into two companies: Teck Metals and Elk Valley Metals.

Teck says the split will provide options for stakeholders and will create two strong, world-class mining companies. The Elk Valley Metals company will continue Teck’s focus on metallurgical coal mining in the Elk Valley in the southern part of the province.

Teck’s Fording River operations in the Elk Valley are the focus of the recent fines and long-standing international controversy as pollution in the Elk River flows into Lake Koocanusa which is bisected by the U.S and Canadian border.

"We have concerns about the process, and we are seeking an option so funds paid could instead flow to community or environmental programs that further the Ktunaxa’s stewardship and cultural objectives," Teck said in a recent email.

Teck's water treatment facility at Fording River Operations, the delay of which is the primary subject of the penalties, is now fully operating and achieving near-complete removal of selenium from treated water, Teck said.

Teck has built four facilities with the capacity to treat and remove selenium from up to 77.5 million liters of water per day. This represents a four-fold increase from our treatment capacity in 2020. The company is working to further increase that to 120 million liters per day by the end of 2026, Teck said in a recent email.

The largest fine,​​ with a price tag of nearly $15.5 million, was levied because of Teck’s inability to activate a water treatment plant within the timeline required by the company’s permit, according to British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. The deadline of Dec. 31, 2018, was established for Teck to have a water treatment plant up and running.

Daniel Bings, director of the Environmental Management Act, wrote up the determination of administrative penalty for each infraction.

"Teck benefited from record profits during these years, but attributed 'an underperforming contractor and the Covid-19 pandemic as reasons for the delay,'” Bings wrote. The plant became operational 805 days later than Teck’s permit required.

The treatment plant is the third water treatment plant that Teck has opened and it became operational in early 2022 so the coal giant could treat selenium in the upper Fording River of Canada. The fines are relatively small compared to a 2021 penalty when Teck was ordered by Canada to pay $60 million for selenium and calcite discharges in the area.

The new facility has a daily capacity of treating up to about 5.3 million gallons of water. The company said its water treatment operations remove some 95% of selenium and nitrate from waters treated in the Elk Valley, according to prior reporting by the Daily Inter Lake.

“I have concerns about Teck’s ability or intent to comply with the permit requirements and the ongoing projections of exceedances of the established Permit limits,” Bings wrote.

In addition to the fine for not completing the water treatment plant on time, Teck is being fined for causing excessive nitrate and selenium levels in the watershed.

A $864,000 fine was issued for 48 instances where nitrates were measured in excess between January 2019 and February 2021.

The government identified 50 monthly average exceedances and 31 daily maximum exceedances from 2015 until February 2021. Of these, only 17 monthly average exceedances and 31 maximum daily exceedances will be the focus of the penalty, Bing wrote.

Elevated nitrate levels have been detected in Lake Koocanusa that may be associated with historical blasting practices used for the upstream mines in the Elk Valley, the Montana Department of Environmental quality said in a recent email.

Teck was also fined $216,000 for nine separate occasions during which selenium concentrations in tributaries to the Koocanusa reservoir were over standard. The selenium concentrations were between 4% and 35% over the Canadian government's selenium standards. The dates for the infractions were between March 2020 and February 2021.

This was a large, complex enforcement action that took a significant amount of resources and effort to ensure a positive outcome was achieved, British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy wrote in a recent email. Future enforcement actions, including penalty amounts, cannot be predicted at this time, the ministry wrote.

The compliance and enforcement process can take a significant amount of time, British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said. The process includes compliance verification processes that involve multiple site inspections, data readings and analyses, as well as correspondence with Teck.

With Teck splitting into two companies, the British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy is not contemplating any changes to the regulatory requirements for the mines.

"If a new company takes over responsibility of a mine, they will need to apply to have permits and other authorizations transferred into their name. Typically, this transfer process would not result in any changes to regulatory requirements. They would still be expected to comply with all same regulatory requirements," the ministry wrote.

“Increasing trends for selenium have been detected at a long-term Canadian monitoring site found on the Elk River, just upstream of Lake Koocanusa, BC. Selenium data for Lake Koocanusa in Montana is more limited, as it has only been routinely sampled since 2013,” the DEQ said in an email.

Selenium can impact aquatic life and life dependent on aquatic life, the DEQ said. Selenium is a required nutrient for life but can have toxic effects in high concentrations.

“Selenium bioaccumulates in wildlife primarily through dietary exposure with fish being the most sensitive wildlife endpoint in Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai River,” the DEQ said.