{"id":11367,"date":"2017-01-05T19:05:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T03:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/british-columbia-to-clean-up-mine-near-juneau\/"},"modified":"2017-01-05T19:05:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T03:05:13","slug":"british-columbia-to-clean-up-mine-near-juneau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/british-columbia-to-clean-up-mine-near-juneau\/","title":{"rendered":"British Columbia to clean up mine near Juneau"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014<\/strong> Canadian officials say they will take action to prevent polluted water from a decades-old mine from entering the Taku River, a key source of salmon caught in Southeast Alaska.<\/p>\n

British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told CoastAlaska News experts will explore different options, including plugging leaking tunnels from the defunct Tulsequah Chief Mine. The acidic water has been carrying pollutants into the Tulsequah River, which is a tributary of the Taku near Juneau.<\/p>\n

The mine hasn\u2019t operated since 1957, and the two companies that tried to reopen it in the last 20 years have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

Canadian officials had ordered the site\u2019s most recent developer, Chieftain Meals, to clean up the site, but the company went bankrupt last fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were not able before freeze-up to do anything about the settling pond that exists beside the river that captures the runoff from the hill that the old mine was built into,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n

A government contractor took care of improperly stored chemicals and petroleum products.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the water that\u2019s been tested by both Alaska and British Columbia has shown no negative impacts on aquatic organisms, it\u2019s still against our rules for that water to be flowing into the Tulsequah River. So, one way or the other, we have to stop it,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n

Chris Zimmer, Alaska campaign director for the group Rivers Without Borders, has been calling for a cleanup of the site for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, B.C. was simply saying we\u2019re going to let the mining companies come in, develop the mine and clean it up. I think now Minister Bennett realizes that after two bankruptcies that this mine isn\u2019t one that will be developed and B.C.\u2019s now going to have to responsibility for the cleanup,\u201d Zimmer said.<\/p>\n

But Bennett acknowledges that a new company could take over the Tulsequah mine, which is owned by a Canadian firm. Any new developer would have to adhere to higher standards for the site, Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would need an ironclad commitment from any new buyer that they were going to do what\u2019s necessary immediately. And if we can\u2019t get that, then the government would act on the closure and remediation plan and just simply close the site down,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 Canadian officials say they will take action to prevent polluted water from a decades-old mine from entering the Taku River, a key source of salmon caught in Southeast Alaska. British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told CoastAlaska News<\/a> experts will explore different options, including plugging leaking tunnels from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":11368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11367"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}