Of all the fictions peddled by opponents of the clean water initiatives and supporters of the Pebble mine, few are as fanciful as the fairy tale they flog about Red Dog Creek. According to them it was so naturally befouled that nothing could live in it, but now, thanks to mining, it so teems with trout a weir is required to prevent a fish infestation. Baloney.
I was director of environmental affairs with Cominco, reporting to the president during the time when this mine was starting up.
Red Dog Creek runs 2 1/2 miles from the Red Dog Mine to Ikalukrok Creek, which, 25 miles later, enters the Wulik River. It was a small stream dependent on precipitation and groundwater, and it was frozen solid in the winter. Based on a handful of samples, collected only after substantial exploration disturbance had occurred, it had low water quality caused by heavy metal and acidic discharge that impacted it as far as the Ikalukrok. This was the greatest extent of any reported natural contamination.
Once mining began this drastically changed. The Red Dog Mine water management plan suffered from inadequate hydrologic, meteorological, and geologic baseline data. For example, no groundwater data were collected for mine planning, and when an aquifer laced with heavy metals was intercepted there were no plans to redirect it from Red Dog Creek.
Combined with unanticipated precipitation and permafrost melt, acid mine drainage flooded into Red Dog Creek, contaminating the Ikalukrok and Wulik River to the sea. In 1991 the Environmental Protection Agency ordered remedial action, but Red Dog management evidently did not take it seriously. The EPA-ordered drainage ditch did not extend the length of the acid generating area, the liner in the ditch was perforated with shot rock and leaked like a sieve, and the water treatment plant did not work anyway. Contamination of the Ikalukrok and Wulik continued.
Several belated years later the EPA again took action. This time a $4.7 million penalty caught the attention of new Red Dog management. Apparently the acid drainage problems have been resolved, the treatment plant works and clean water is routinely discharged into Red Dog Creek. Trout should be there. The stream hydrology has been completely altered in accordance with the EPA order.
But the mystery to me is this: How can clean water opponents and Pebble supporters claim that finally improving stream hydrology in 2 1/2 miles of a little creek is a credit to the mining industry and support for the disastrous Pebble project, when for fifteen or more years the Wulik River with important grayling and Dolly Varden populations, not to mention one of Alaska's largest Arctic char runs, was annually poisoned?
Here's the important point: Teck Cominco has more experience building big mines in the North than any company in the world, and with a better environmental record than most. Cominco discovered the Pebble property in 1986 and conducted extensive exploration on it for several years, including during my tenure. In 2002 Teck Cominco sold it to Northern Dynasty for a measly $10 million and without retaining a position in it. In 2003 Northern Dynasty "discovers" the biggest gold/copper deposit in the world and soon Anglo American is its partner. Northern Dynasty and its parent company, Hunter Dickinson, have never planned, built or operated a mine anywhere. Anglo American has never built a mine in North America let alone in the North.
Now, consider all the problems Red Dog has had and the vastly more difficult environment at Pebble where there is four times as much precipitation, the water table is on the surface, and it overlies the most active seismic area in North America. Then ask this: How can Vancouver stock promoters and inexperienced South Africans protect this environment when the best and most experienced northern mining company had so many problems for so long in the far more benign environment at Red Dog, and, in light of all their experience, walked away from Pebble?
Bruce C. Switzer is former environmental affairs director of Cominco, did environmental permitting in the mining business for 25 years, and has a Ph.D. in environmental studies. He lives in Tucson, Ariz.
By BRUCE C. SWITZER