ENVIRONMENT

Can coal mining co-exist with nature?

Published: January 9, 2008

VANCOUVER -- At first glance the clear and beautiful streams that drain the Crowsnest coal field in the southeast corner of British Columbia seem to exemplify environmental health.

The water is as clear as the Rocky Mountain air and in the summer months, when mayflies are hatching or flying ants are tumbling from the sky, it is possible to see big cutthroat trout rising to the surface to feed. Surely here, you think, is proof that the coal mining industry can co-exist with nature.

But all is not well in the trout streams of the Crowsnest - where acid waters, heavy metals and dissolved nutrients are leaching from mine tailings.

The pollution isn't new - mining began in the area in 1897 and reached a large industrial scale in 1970 - but much of the water-quality data is. And it's painting an increasingly worrying picture, especially for those downstream in Montana, where concerns are at a fever pitch because of a B.C. proposal to open a massive new coal mine on the Flathead River.

Over the past several years scientists have been studying the streams that braid the Crowsnest coal field, a 60,000-hectare region in the Rocky Mountains, near Fernie, where both the Flathead and Elk Rivers are born. The goal is to understand the long-term impacts of the active coal mines (five operations currently mine 25 million metric tonnes a year) and to set baseline data in case the new Flathead mine goes ahead.

Researchers have collected insects, taken thousands of water samples, tested bottom sediment, studied fish tissue and ground up the eggs of birds to get a better idea of how metals are concentrating in the environment.

Jessica Thompson and F.R. Hauer, in a presentation at the Annual Pacific Ecology and Evolution Conference in Washington State, described last year a study they did of microscopic plants and animals in the Flathead and Elk Rivers.

The Elk, which is fed by streams running through active coal mining areas, has elevated concentrations of metals, especially selenium, which is 57 times higher than levels in the Flathead.

In the Flathead, the study found 74 species of diatoms (unicellular algae) but in Michel Creek, which runs into the Elk, there are only 18 species.

Lee Harding, of SciWrite Environmental Sciences Ltd., did a study on birds, drawing blood from fledglings, and having eggshells analyzed in the lab.

He found elevated selenium levels, but in the three species examined (red-winged blackbirds, American dippers and spotted sandpipers) he found no clear evidence that populations were suffering. He did record a "slightly reduced hatchability" in sandpipers, but the overall productivity was higher than normal.

"Studies conducted to date, though not yet definitive, do not provide indications of adverse effects on aquatic biota or waterfowl in the Elk River Valley," Peter Chapman, of EVS Environment Consultants, concluded in a review of several recent studies.

Data collected by Environment Canada over the past decade, however, show there is a trend to increasing concentrations of selenium in the Elk Valley.

And the amount of selenium found in Elk River cutthroat trout eggs is now higher than the threshold level at which it is supposed to be toxic.

So why aren't the fish dying?

One possibility put forward by researchers is that there is "an evolved tolerance," in the Elk Valley.

Tolerant or not, there is good reason to worry about the future.

Selenium in small amounts is healthy, but it only takes a minuscule increase and fish or birds can develop serious reproductive problems.

The U.S. Forest Service refers to selenium as "an insidious killer" because of the way it builds up in the environment, before causing deterioration and deformity in fish and wildlife.

"It degrades water quality and travels into the food chain, where it reaches fish and birds. Selenium contamination does not result in sudden fish kills," states the U.S. Forest Service in a paper on the impacts of selenium.

In Montana, Governor Brian Schweitzer and Senator Max Baucus have been leading a campaign to try and persuade the B.C. government not to allow any new coal mines in the Flathead River basin. They are worried that pollution will flow downstream, into Flathead Lake, in Glacier National Park.

We should be worried in Canada too, where the Elk is already feeling the impact of coal mining.