One Indigenous Community's Mining Windfall Is Another’s Worry
Plus: Another American Company Wants to Mine the Sea Floor; Accidental Metal Art; and more about the real costs of renewable energy and digital technology—and how we can do better.
One Indigenous Community’s Mining Windfall Is Another’s Worry
Ten years ago, members of the Tahltan nation, an Indigenous people in northern British Columbia, Canada, were blockading roads to prevent the opening of the Red Chris copper mine because of concerns about its potential environmental impacts. Today, that mine employs hundreds of Tahltan workers, provides Tahltan communities with millions of dollars in grants and royalties, and does major business with the nation’s corporate arm. The Tahltan government is guaranteed a powerful voice in the mine’s future.
All of this is the result of deals the nation has negotiated over the years. It seems like a success story, a case study in asserting Indigenous rights to win concrete benefits from extractive industries operating on traditional lands. But as the rush for critical metals turbocharges demand for copper, the Red Chris mine, and several others proposed for Tahltan territory, might pose serious risks for other Indigenous groups across the border in Alaska. It’s an example of how, even in places where Indigenous peoples have won a degree of power, the costs and the rewards of the critical metals rush still aren’t being spread around equally.
Red Chris is one of at least eight proposed or operating mines in BC which sit near major rivers that flow into southeast Alaska. The Tahltan have negotiated agreements for some of them, in addition to Red Chris. The many Alaskan Indigenous groups living downstream, on the other hand, don’t reap any economic benefits from the mines that might outweigh environmental concerns, nor do they have any say in how they are operated. All they get is the risk that pollutants from the mines will harm their communities.
“We’re very concerned,” says Guy Archibald, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, a consortium of 14 tribal nations downstream from the mines. “Those rivers are the source of our salmon, of our oolichan, our moose and and all our cultural opportunities as well. You can’t protect a watershed if you’re only considering the top half of it.”
The SEITC is doing what it can. The group has for years petitioned an international human rights commission to investigate the impacts of the border-crossing mines. Last week, the SEITC sent a petition signed by 30,000 people to several ministers in BC’s government, calling for new mine permits to be paused until the Alaskan nations are consulted. Their next move may be to file a case in BC’s Supreme Court, says Archibald.
The issue is heating up because mining is expanding rapidly in northwestern BC. The remote region is jam-packed with copper, as well as gold, silver and other metals. Between rising Electro-Digital Age demand and a desire to build up domestic industries in the face of President Trump’s tariffs, Canada wants to see more of them dug up.
Newmont Corporation, which owns the Red Chris mine, is currently seeking permission to expand operations there. Both Canada’s federal government and the BC provincial government have earmarked it as a project to be fast-tracked for approval.
Last spring, however, the nonprofit group Skeena Wild Conservation Trust released a report that raised fresh concerns about Red Chris. Among other things, the researchers found that selenium and other contaminants were leaching out of the mine’s tailings pond and waste rock into nearby creeks and lakes. Selenium levels in the flesh of rainbow trout in some of those lakes had doubled, reaching a level considered unsafe for humans to eat. The Tahltan Central Government issued a formal response, saying it was “actively working on several initiatives to address critical issues” around the tailings and waste rock. (I reached out to the Tahltan and to Newmont for comment, but got no response from either.)
That toxic leakage might just be a taste of what’s in store as more mines come online. “These are large projects, and each one has the potential for significant impact,” says Adrienne Berchtold, the primary author of the Skeena Wild report. “When you put a bunch of them together, that’s a lot of cumulative pressure on a region that is already undergoing some pretty rapid transformations under climate change.”
The SEITC hasn’t heard anything from the BC government, says Archibald, nor from the Tahltan. They’re not out to second-guess the Tahltan’s choices on Red Chris and other mines. “If the Tahltan central government is benefiting from and maybe even promoting mining, you know, that’s their decision to make. We’re not looking to impinge on what they’re doing,” he says. “We only ask that we have the opportunity to maybe make the same decisions. If it slows things down, if they have to protect the lower portions of these rivers adequately and spend maybe a little bit more money on monitoring and mitigation, well, so be it. Everybody should benefit.”
Another American Company Wants to Mine the Sea Floor
Another private company is trying to do an end-run around the world’s ocean regulatory body by applying to the US government for permission to explore the ocean floor for critical metals. Back in April, the Trump administration declared its intention to promote seabed mining, and The Metals Company, a would-be mining outfit, promptly applied for a license to start industrial scale mining on the Pacific floor—a move which would violate international law. Their application is still pending, but last week, South Carolina-based Deep Sea Rare Minerals became the second company to publicly file a similar request.
That same week, scientists at the University of Hawaii came out with yet another study indicating that seabed mining could harm sea life. Underwater mining robots could kick up sediment plumes “as murky as the mud-filled Mississippi River,” wrote the researchers, potentially disrupting the food chain for creatures in the ocean’s midwater layers.
Seabed mining conducted carefully might turn out to be reasonably safe. But at this point, hardly any marine scientists think we know enough to say so with any confidence. As one of the University of Hawaii scientists said to Radio New Zealand: “The real question is, are we ready to risk ocean ecosystems for mineral extraction?” To which I’d add: Do we want the Trump administration to be the ones who get to answer that question?
Power Metal News
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This Week in Accidental Metal Art
The forests of Lynn Canyon, just north of Vancouver, were heavily logged decades ago, then left to grow back. The trees have been reclaiming the place ever since— including this piece of abandoned machinery. Poetic, no?
More News Worth Knowing
🔋 I love the ‘hunter-gatherers to farmers’ framing of this new report on the explosion in battery storage: “We are moving from an era where we track down and gather fossil fuels to one where we can harvest renewable electricity in place.”
☀️ After a giant storm in Jamaica, “people with rooftop solar panels got their power back almost immediately.”
💵 The US is taking a stake in yet another rare earth company.
🌿 Chinese researchers find rare earths in a plant!
🤮 Congolese copper mine tailings dam collapses, contaminated water pours into major city.
⏳ Sand mining threatens southeast Asia’s biggest lake. (Sand mining? Yes.)
Thanks Vince, I feel more informed!